Ollie's humour

I am indeed grateful to 68er Ravi Nangia for sending me this snippet.

Reading "Ubi's" reference to the "Chronicill" in his recent email to you (posted on your blog of Jan 30), sent me looking for an article, "In Retrospect" which Ollie wrote when he left School in 1965.

The Chronicill folded up long before my time, but this is what Ollie wrote:

"THE CHRONICILL"

Those were the days [Ollie wrote about the late 1940s] when with less than 400 boys in school... We had a limited number of hymns which we sang over and over again, .. I do not know if these were the only hymns known or the the only tunes Lincoln (Head Clerk) could play.

It was not until the "Chronicill", a monthly rag made its appearance that the hymn list was lengthened and the reading of the lesson by Prefects became audible.

The Chronicill (named so due to a spelling error by Bobby Jones [Ollie doesn't explain why he continued to use the misspelt name] ran for about six years under a parody of the School crest and motto

"Clearum difficient stupia"

and lived up to its proud boast,

"We print anything".

It once printed an absentee list which found its way into the contribution box, a toffee wrapper, and somebody's "lines"....

Best wishes,

Ravi Nangia

Seventh Heaven certainly had some competition.

But we have survived and the two first editors (59ers Vinay Dabholkar and Wabhi Zayani) are still out there watching me husband their work!

Hope I am doing a decent job of it? :-)