OC Beaks Interviews

What do you remember about your first day(s) as a pupil at Charterhouse?

Mr Bagley: Being unable to remember any joke to include in my New Hop’s test paper. [New pupils were set a test by their House monitors to ensure they knew all about the School; some Houses set quite bizarre questions and pupils who failed the test had to sing a song in front of the monitors.]

Also, successfully barricading my room by wedging the bed between the door and desk, thus avoiding getting soaked in the middle of the night by some rather nasty Removes. Also, my roommate insisted on doing his oboe practice in our room.

Mr Buchan: I remember the first night very vividly – we had great big long dormitories then. I had come from a very little prep school and Charterhouse seemed vast and very weighty and important as an institution.

Miss Gordon-Martin:

I turned up at Northridge, terrified. We had to go straight in to have a photo and I remember thinking, “Gosh, if I had known I would’ve spent a bit of time on my hair”. That first day was all rush, rush, rush, go, go, go. But what was really nice that evening New Girls 2002 was that the 20 or so girls in Northridge just got two massive jars of Nutella out and sat in the kitchen, demolished both, and simply got to know each other. And instantly, I felt relieved and knew I’d found my crew.

Mr Stimpson: I remember my very first day, my first hash as a Carthusian, and I was late, the bell had gone, and my beak just shut and locked the door! I was locked out and didn’t know what to do, but I was very clear that I would not be late ever again after that!

My first calling over also stands out as a memory. It doesn’t happen anymore, but several times a Quarter the beaks would give you a grade for effort and achievement in every subject, then you would go into Hall and be lined up in the order to show how hard your beaks thought you were working. The Master of the Under School would be wearing his academic gown and would go down the line and speak to you one at a time. It was all very formal and very serious.

Pageites 1982

Did you ever get into trouble at Charterhouse?

Mr Bagley: Fortunately, most of my misdeeds remain undetected, but there was the chicken coop on the Pageites roof incident… The hens had just started laying nicely when the Housemaster found a couple of bags of chicken feed in the attic and the boy concerned had to admit to the livestock. The Housemaster was quite amused – “how enterprising” was reported to be his response. Unfortunately, most of the eggs were used as projectiles. Mine was but a small bit part – using my workshop skills to build the chicken run on the roof so the hens could be released from their temporary housing of my friend’s trunk.

Mr Buchan: No, I was ridiculously well behaved – absurdly well behaved. I must have got into trouble for talking too much, but I don’t think I ever got Extra School and I don’t think I even got an Armoury Run – these are punishments that no longer exist.

Mr Gillespie: Well, I spoke in Chapel with my hands in my pockets and I remember I got told off about that. It was just before a midweek cricket match, so I was wearing my 1st XI pink blazer.

Miss Gordon-Martin: If you were given an Armoury Run, it meant you had to see this really scary lady, all in a uniform, and do a run around Big Ground early in the morning. There were Grass Rules – no walking on the grass – and if you had three ‘Grass Rules’ you got an Armoury Run. On my first day back as a beak I saw people walking on the grass, so I said ‘Grass Rules’, and they looked at me as if I was absolutely deranged!

What were your favourite sports:

Mr Bagley: Swimming in the old swimming baths, but the unheated atmosphere made it freezing when you got out, and the walk from down by Racquet Courts back to House in the dark was not much fun, so I took up squash instead!

Mr Buchan: I did absolutely no sports whatsoever –I was really quite good at avoiding all forms of sport!

Mr Gillespie: I played football, hockey, cricket and a lot of squash, but I gave up squash as a Fifth because I just didn’t have the time.

Miss Gordon-Martin: I played everything! I was Captain of girls’ hockey and I played for the boys’ second XI, which I was pretty proud of. I played netball, tennis and did athletics – I held the School record for the 200 metres, which I felt quite proud of too. Sport is my happy place. Miss Hughes-D’Aeth: Ah, sport was not my forte! I enjoyed netball, but I definitely did not do hockey and I don’t think I did anything in the summertime. You didn’t have to, and no one really chased up on that.

Mr Kane: I came from a very small prep school where there was really only one team, so if you signed up, you played. But here, I joined and was in the Under 14E’s for football and hockey, and the Under 14D’s for cricket. I think it made me really competitive and I went from Under 14D’s cricket to the 2nd XI and playing on Green, and that was a real drive for me.

Girls Hockey 2004

Mrs Hogg: I did everything, but then I was from a sporty background. I enjoyed trying new things likes Fives.

Cricket 2nd XI 2011

Mr Reid: I came here because of a football course I went on when I was about 11 – it was run by Mr Malcolm Bailey (BH742013) and he basically persuaded me that Charterhouse was the place for me. Otherwise, I might have gone to my dad’s old school (Marlborough), but it was a rugby school, which I wasn’t interested in.

Mr Stimpson: When I arrived I wanted to try everything –I managed it all for three or four weeks before I realised I was just dead and couldn’t quite do everything. So, my three big sports were shooting, rock climbing and basketball. My twin brother and I were very different, but we had a shared passion for basketball, so playing in the basketball team with him was terrific. I was also very excited to join the CCF.

What are your best pupil memories of Charterhouse?

Mr Bagley: My great friends who remain a big part of my life, completing the 50 Mile Walk, Specialist hashes, 2nd Tics Hockey, Club nights, and a number of my undetected misdeeds!

Mr Buchan: My Housemaster for my final three years was Dr Peterken. I liked him. I thought he was a tremendously good Housemaster, and he used to make me laugh, and I think I made him laugh as well, and I became Head of House. I think the role of Head of House has changed a little bit, but we did have quite a mission – we worked together to make sure that Fourths weren’t being bullied. That was a huge part of what we ended up doing.

Saunderites 2005

My first play was Return to the Forbidden Planet, which was a musical in which I played a roller skating robot. My costume was a silver sort of leotard onesie, which is a horrible thing to put a 13 year old in! My favourite drama role was probably Thénardier in Les Miserables because it was so much fun and it was such a massive thing. We did a production of Antigone – the Jean Anouilh version, because why do anything easy? I played ‘The Chorus’ and that was extraordinary – I loved doing that. So you basically just hung out in the Theatre? Yes, I spent most of my time there and now it’s my job, so not much has changed. Mr Gillespie: I can still remember Cricket 1st XI 1998 scoring a hundred on Green, and the 50 Mile Walk and notable group things, rather than individual history hashes.

Miss Gordon-Martin: My favourite thing was waking up on a Saturday morning, being able to put my PE kit on because I knew I was going to go straight from hashes to a match, and I couldn’t wait.

Mrs Hogg: 2nd year Crown evenings [the top floor of Crown was run as a pub for 2nd Year Specialists, who could use tokens to purchase limited amounts of beer]; The Fifty Mile Walk; living in a beak’s home (R A Gordon-Smith) with my two best friends in 2nd year [girls lived in lodgings with local families until Chetwynd opened as the first girls’ hall of residence in 1999].

Miss Hughes-D’Aeth: I loved Scottish Dancing on Mondays with Mr Bogdan, getting very sweaty dancing increasingly difficult reels and eating far too many malteasers.

I was really lucky with my house, with lovely boys and a great group of girls, which was handy because it was complete luck of the draw! We devoured cheese toasties made by Fred (Manuel) and did the crossword with different years groups in the S library whilst eating them. Amongst my fondest memories.

St Andrews Ball 2006

Mr Kane: I went on a Classics trip to Greece with Mr Freeman and I think probably also Mr Haynes, which was pretty memorable. I ballboy-ed at the ISFA Cup Final as a fourth, because Duckite Fourths were recruited to do that. And then when I was a Second Year, obviously I wasn’t involved in the actual match, but we won the ISFA Cup, so that was pretty memorable.

Mr Reid: I remember going on a chamber choir (or as it was called, ‘special choir’) tour down the Eastern seaboard of the USA. That was fantastic. I had an absolutely brilliant clarinet teacher, who was utterly inspiring, and, for me, the Christian Union was the other thing that was hugely influential, run for many, many years by Cary Gilbart-Smith, who was a Classics beak.

Mr Stimpson: I had the same tutor for all five years, Dr Elizabeth Holloway, who taught physics and was an amazing tutor – she guided me all the way through, from settling into Charterhouse, wishing me happy 13th birthday in my very first week here, helping me through my GCSEs and when I was applying to universities – she helped me achieve all of those things.

What kind of impact did Charterhouse have on your life choices?

Miss Gordon-Martin: Dr Peterken was my Housemaster in Saunderites and I would genuinely say he changed my life – that sounds a little bit over the top, but it’s true because when I was first here I struggled a bit. I lost my confidence hugely and I didn’t quite know what do, and I had a few run-ins with some of the beaks. Dr Peterken was also new as a Housemaster and was great. In the end he made me Head of House of Saunderites, which was quite a big moment because there hadn’t been any girl Heads of House at the School before.

Miss Hughes-D’Aeth: I’d really love to have had some accounting and finance advice and to have learnt general things like fixing a tap and how to change a car tyre, but Charterhouse taught me to be very independent and it taught me a lot about friendship as well.

Saunderites 2004

Mr Kane: I think one thing it did inspire in me is a really strong sense of justice and fairness.

What was your first day back at Charterhouse as a beak like?

Why did you decide to return to Charterhouse?

Mr Bagley: The Specialist Curriculum and the reputation of the department I am privileged to lead.

Mr Gillespie: I was finishing my History degree, but didn’t know what it was going to lead to. I had just been to my university careers department and took away a rucksack full of careers ideas, but I never looked at any of it because that night, at the Old Robinites’ dinner, Will Lane (Head of History) and Hugh Gammell (Robinites’ Housemaster) came up to me and asked, ‘what are you doing next year? Do you want a job?’ And that was it – a new History teacher had pulled out of the job at short notice, so they needed a replacement, just for a year – well, it was meant to be a year, but obviously it’s become a bit longer than that!

Mrs Hogg: I have a strong family connection with Charterhouse. We live locally, and it is a great place to work.

Miss Hughes D’Aeth: Part of the reason I came back was because I felt very strongly about getting girls’ education right at Charterhouse and establishing our own Girls’ Houses was a vital part of that.

Mr Kane: I don’t think I’d necessarily be teaching here if I hadn’t come here myself and had the teaching that I had. I was fortunate enough to have some excellent teachers throughout my time across all my subjects. Classics trip to Greece

Mr Bagley: Busy. So was the second, and so on…

Mr Buchan: Being back is extraordinary, because it is a very different place. When I arrived in 2018, I had to adjust to suddenly having a School email account and being allowed into Brooke Hall and all of that. Coming back, it feels like Charterhouse has accepted me more than it ever did the first time around.

Mr Gillespie: I ran out of thing to say in my first hash! The Headmaster had set aside a 40-minute hash to talk to the different year groups, but only took a few minutes with my Removes, so what should have been ten minutes just to meet them became half an hour. Nowadays I can talk for hours about all sorts of things. At the end of the first day, I had lost my voice.

Miss Gordon-Martin: It was bizarre going into Brooke Hall and seeing my pigeon hole for letters, because you don’t go into Brooke Hall as a pupil. I felt a bit weird when I saw the row of letter boxes with my name, together with Gillespie, Georgiakakis, and Hall. I took a photo and sent it to my brothers! I felt like an imposter, but then every teacher has imposter syndrome.

Mrs Hogg: Manic – trying to learn lots of new names (beaks and pupils alike)!

Miss Hughes-D’Aeth: It was a bit odd to begin with, I’m not going to lie! I think I made some of the beaks who had taught me feel quite old.

Mr Kane: It’s strange, because you’re going back to places where you used to live (five years!) and some of the corridors aren’t how you remember them, because they’ve been renovated. It’s all slightly different. And that’s when you realise that this doesn’t really belong to you, it’s something that you’ve passed through and you are a tenant for a while. There’s a Charterhouse that exists in your memory, which doesn’t exist anymore.

How has Charterhouse changed?

Mr Bagley: Today’s pastoral care would be unrecognisable in the late ‘70s, though I benefited from a very caring Housemaster who knew a lot more than we realised. In other ways, no. It is still a place that allows a wide range of characters to thrive, where academics matter, but they are far from the only thing, and everyone has the opportunity to find something that they really love and can contribute to.

Mr Buchan: Charterhouse is now a school where diversity is slowly, but very certainly, being accepted and encouraged and I sometimes feel quite emotional about the fact that I can do a tiny, tiny little bit to make a difference with that.

Mr Reid: We did the 50 Mile Walk without mobile phones. It was five miles or so between checkpoints, so if anyone broke an ankle, well, someone would have to walk three miles to the next checkpoint and then bring adults back to get them and so on. It would be unthinkable now. I remember going on Charterhouse’s first ever Model UN trip, which was organised basically by a group of pupils and we went to the Hague for a week with no beak, just a group of 2nd Year Specs on a school trip. The idea of that now…!

Mr Kane: There’s been a marked increase in the proportion of female staff, which can only be a good thing. That only really came to my mind when I was a pupil and did a tour for a prospective parent, who asked me, “What’s the proportion of male to female teachers?” And I instinctively said 50/50 because that’s the gender ratio of a population. And then I went, hang on a minute, there’s a hundred or so members of Brooke Hall and only two of them are women.

Mr Stimpson: Some traditions in the past were not so pleasant and have been got rid of: when I was first here we still had ‘fagging’ – the idea that senior boys could ring a bell and order junior boys to go to Crack to get sweets. Also, we would have to get up at 6.30 in the morning to knock on the senior pupils’ doors, bring them toast, bring them coffee, turn on their lights, turn on their stereo, open the blinds and so on. My year group in Lockites were very proud that we got rid of this system when we were 2nd Year Specs because none of us had liked being forced to do these jobs as Fourths.

All schools change slightly as time goes on. I think Charterhouse still offers a fantastic education with small class sizes and high-quality teaching. Charterhouse does keep changing though. The traditional Charterhouse terminology is still here, and I hope we don’t get rid of it. I like the fact that we have beaks and hashes and that you are First Year Specs. I think it’s nice, it creates a nice little identity and it’s not elitist, it’s not discriminating, but it is something that you can take pride in. Thank you to our interviewers: Anastasiia Afanaseva (F), Henry Anderson (L), Giovanni Andrenelli (B), Giulia d’Errico (C), Laura Galbraith (F), Alberto Giardino (B), Amelia Groom (F), Oliver Muir (D), Alexa Mukherjee (C), Astrid Riddoch (C), Flora Stevenson (Su), Max Stockmeier (S)