School Food

[Lateralthinking1]

That description almost exactly parallelled my own experience(s), Lat.

My take on it now is that it was class war, even if none of those involved actually knew it. There was a gap between the classes. The liberal post-war generations of the middle classes did not accept the egalitarian agenda of many of their parents. It has taken until this decade for the reality of that to come to fruition. It is now nothing less than UK plc as everyone is experiencing it.

I was my school's best bet for dropping out before O'levels and going to the local comprehensive. I came 120th of 120 for two years running in exams and at one point was on tranquilizers. What happened was that I stayed at it regardless, seeing with bemusement others dropping out ahead of O'levels and many more after O'levels. I was one of perhaps just six in the sixth form declared unworthy of being a prefect, yet ending up with reasonable A'level results and entry to a Top Six university. Only one teacher congratulated me with the words "well done - frankly I'm astounded". Three years later, my university awarded me a 2:1.

The university was class blind, more so then than now. But they have got us now I think. They got me. It took them several decades but they got me. There had been many ups and downs in the interim but the downs were having more impact. Those from comprehensives who were on the same level at 22 or further back in terms of achievement wanted the heights. Nothing in their demeanour suggested enough awareness to be oppositional. When that happened, it was time to leave them along with Britain.

[Mary Chambers]

The university was class blind, more so then than now. But they have got us now I think. They got me. It took them several decades but they got me. There had been many ups and downs in the interim but the downs were having more impact. Those from comprehensives who were on the same level at 22 or further back in terms of achievement wanted the heights. Nothing in their demeanour suggested enough awareness to be oppositional. When that happened, it was time to leave them along with Britain.

I don't understand a word of this!

[salymap]

Like Anna I lived near enough to all my schools to be able to cycle home to lunch. The war was on and one of the Domestic Science teachers had vouchers to buy food for the lessons. As there was a butcher's shop on my way to school I had the task of buying meat of various kinds and delivering it to the teacher. It only struck me later that our lessons consisted of cake and pastry making and no meat appeared at all. I expect the teachers had a good lunch though. School milk was the only thing I received, it tasted very odd and chalky I thought.

[mangerton]

Chips were a luxury at my fascist boarding school - nearest accurate depiction being Lindsay Anderson's 1968 film "If...".

"If......" - a great film, and all very true to life. I was at a rather similar fascist establishment. We had chips once in the four years I had the misfortune to attend. I rather think the steward was taken to task by the headmaster for serving them on that one occasion. Not at all in keeping with the ethos of the school.

[Lateralthinking1]

I don't understand a word of this!

Yes my apologies.

It could have been worded better but there has been a lot of responsibility on my shoulders today. I was Chancellor of the Exchequer until lunchtime and then was required to be the Secretary of State for Climate Change this afternoon at very short notice.

[Mary Chambers]

Yes my apologies.

It could have been worded better but there has been a lot of responsibility on my shoulders today. I was Chancellor of the Exchequer until lunchtime and then was required to be the Secretary of State for Climate Change this afternoon at very short notice.

I can see that would be quite tough

[Lateralthinking1]

I can see that would be quite tough

Yes, thanks.

Funnily enough, one of my main difficulties with that school, which is still among the highly regarded, involved someone else not getting his school dinner. I was in the situation where each evening I would encounter various locals. They would tell me what a wonderful place it was, although they had no experience of it. I witnessed awkwardly with such comments anything from obsequiousness to jealousy. I would also be thinking back to incidents during the day which were far from the presentation.

For example, that one and a half hour lunch break, thirty minutes more than the state sector. Yes, gentlemens' hours are established early in life. And there on one day a mob that I absolutely refused to join. It locked a teacher in his classroom for the duration, the chairs and desks from adjoining rooms piled high to the ceiling against the locked door. Thirty or so braying individuals up on the second floor, over-excited and bordering on hysteria, hammering on the door and throwing insults at the poor chap. Of course he left at the end of the year. Every one of those kids now an adult in a position of influence and lording it over our lives.

A point that I was making is that insiders are of one mind. Others are generally educated elsewhere and do not encounter that sort of thing directly. Once in the workplace, they have some sense of us and them but it isn't as brutally stark. They are if bright willing to adapt, often not wholly enthusiastically, but there is ambition and the bills must be paid. They are lucky. They don't carry a sense of not wanting ever to go there, unlike someone who has seen it when young and alone, feeling completely appalled.

[Mary Chambers]

Thank you, Lateralthinking1. I think I understand now, more or less.

[Dave2002]

We had a cylindrical suet or spongey sort of pudding covered with red jam. We used to speculate what the pudding would be - "wonder if it'll be dead baby again today?"

[mangerton]

We had a cylindrical suet or spongey sort of pudding covered with red jam. We used to speculate what the pudding would be - "wonder if it'll be dead baby again today?"

That's a bit like dead man's leg, as quoted in "If....." (vs), or indeed the gangrene stew we were sometimes given.

[Dave2002]

I think we had our phrase first - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If.... Ah, stew. We had one of those too. That was pretty horrible, full of bits of gristle. The meat was probably mutton.