Charney Hall School, Grange-over-Sands

  Well another year has almost passed and Christmas is, again, just around the corner….the years fly by and I’ve started the habit of celebrating each day….it’s difficult to decide at what number to begin the countdown as I have no idea whatsoever when the final curtain will fall…. I commenced the above digital painting just over a week ago. The subject lies not a stone’s throw from Grange-over-Sands, just over the hill in Cark-in-Cartmel, within the beautiful garden of the Cavendish family. I suffer from a serious bout of self doubt and procrastination ( the enemy of time ) whenever I embark on a project like this. Sometimes it is a miracle that I actually finish in accordance with the deadline of the original contract (that is, with the powers that be…).  Whatever I learnt at Charney Hall between the years of 1954 and 1958 did not cure my indolence. I could see Maxwell Duncan wringing his hands in despair as he had convinced himself in one report that I occasionally lapsed ...

         Bernard Swift Bernard Swift, true to his name, was a very fast bowler. His run up was almost as long as the pitch. I recalled in an earlier post that he was regarded as our secret weapon…when he was bowling nothing could survive the onslaught that was unleashed at the other end. Unfortunately having to play in-house cricket against him, even on a wet day, was a frightening experience. Come rain or shine his pace never changed and the ball appeared at waist height with monotonous regularity - that is if you glimpsed it at all winging its way down the pitch on its curved trajectory.  His run-up mirrored the flight of the ball and the consistency of his delivery, combined with the dynamic force of his feet on the grass, eventually wore a track beyond the white crease line. Like all of our bowlers his white cotton trousers worn on match days acquired a red stain down the groin area, created by the regular polishing of the red leather of a new ball on...

Andrew Holmes-Higgin emailed me yesterday and reminded me that it is Halloween tomorrow…I don’t really have to say more…just tuck up in a warm bed, switch the lights out and keep the covers high over your head…Andrew swears that these tales are all true… ’Hey  Keith, as the spooky season is once again upon us, I thought I’d pass along some rather strange memories of my Charney days on the subject of what to a 10-year-old was unbelievable terror.  I wish my supernatural stories were a little more horrific but we were probably all very impressionable in those days, and something pretty innocuous took on darker meanings after lights out… ’ The Ghost.    My only real ghost story, and I remember it today just as if it happened yesterday.  It in the summer term of my first year (1968) and I was in what I think was Dorm 1 (middle floor, facing North).  At some point one night I woke up and was aware of a hazy light over by the door which moved into the ...

DAVID HIRST - Journalist and Foreign Correspondent David Hirst Raymond and Alison Hirst had 3 sons and a girl. The eldest boy was John David Hirst. He can be seen on the far right of the above family photograph on holiday in the much admired and coveted Invicta car. Whilst the other brothers are enjoying the ride - sitting on the rear bench seat was a bumpy affair - David can be seen scrutinising the photographer in a most inquiring way - an intense interrogative stare  almost in advance of his years… . Born in 1936, the son of the joint headmaster and co-owner of Charney Hall, he is recorded in the School Lists of Charney Hall between the Summer term of 1944 until the Autumn of 1948. Thereafter he attended Rugby School from 1949 to 1954 and began his national service at 18 (still compulsory at that time) in Egypt and Cyprus from 1954 to 1956. From 1956 to 1963 he studied at Oxford University, like his father before him, and then at the American University of Beirut. David Hirst ap...