Fascinating documentary footage of 1930s CH

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postwarblue
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Re: Fascinating documentary footage of 1930s CH

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The envelope of one's letter from home could be recycled to smuggle out one's spoonful of mashed swede.
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Re: Fascinating documentary footage of 1930s CH

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DavidRawlins wrote:When I started in 1946 porridge was served every day. It was always lumpy. I used to resort to putting the marmalade we were given (which I did not like either) into it.
The next year a choice of cornflakes was available every day.
The choice didn't last long. By 1955, cereals were down to twice a week. Once was Weetabix, which absorbed more milk than we were given.
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Re: Fascinating documentary footage of 1930s CH

Post by michael scuffil »

Just saw the footage. The PT could've been 30 years later. I remember doing that exercise in 1962.
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Re: Fascinating documentary footage of 1930s CH

Post by pierre »

PE must have stopped in 62. I remember watching it whilst in Prep in 61-2 but when I moved to Barnes in 63 it had ceased.
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Re: Fascinating documentary footage of 1930s CH

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pierre wrote:PE must have stopped in 62. I remember watching it whilst in Prep in 61-2 but when I moved to Barnes in 63 it had ceased.
It was killed by the savage winter of early 1963, when no PT was possible. Hung on for the summer term, but was not revived in the winter. I remember a house captains' meeting in I suppose February 1963, attended by Mr Simms, the new PE man, who had learnt some modern stuff. He said that some of the traditional exercises were positively harmful. At the same meeting, we pointed out to Seaman what a boon free breaks were, for all sorts of reasons. As a result of both, morning PT (not PE) was abolished.
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Re: Fascinating documentary footage of 1930s CH

Post by sejintenej »

Just got in on this thread. For legal (I assume it's true because the BBC writes it :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: ) I am prohibited from seeing any of the footage; I just hope I'm not in it.

I don't have M S recall of the cereal / porridge choice having memories of cornflake packets being empty before all the plates were loaded. Yes, rationing time food was pretty awful so heaven only knows what it was like before WWII. It was only after the change in supervisor that things got better, that being subject to a few exceptions. Certainly at Horsham there was not enough to get fat on but it was sufficient to cope with the high work load. I have to hand it to Kit and Corks for eating lunch with us - there were times when their food from the dais was not available and they had to share with us.

P T was what you made of it. From what I have seen it was close to what the Army inflicted on its victims but since the monitors had as little knowledge as the newest squit I can see that it could have been dangerous and was definitely of no apparent use. That said, up to recent years I have done various exercises to keep reasonably fit and flexible but nothing like CH taught - home and hotel rooms are not built for jump squats etc.
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Re: Fascinating documentary footage of 1930s CH

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One of the innovations brought in by the 'new' Lady Superintendent in the 50s was a published menu (not that it offered any actual choices). Another, engineered by Gordon Van Praagh, was soft boiling the eggs. A spinoff from the cereal revolution was that the waxed paper liners were saved up for our Whole Holiday packed lunches.

As to PT being dangerous, I scraped my face on the tuckshop wall coming up crooked for a handstand but worse than that, failing to catch my 'partner' he fell and broke his leg. He was very decent about it & about having a pin through his heel top hold his leg up while it set.
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Re: Fascinating documentary footage of 1930s CH

Post by J.R. »

michael scuffil wrote:
DavidRawlins wrote:When I started in 1946 porridge was served every day. It was always lumpy. I used to resort to putting the marmalade we were given (which I did not like either) into it.
The next year a choice of cornflakes was available every day.
The choice didn't last long. By 1955, cereals were down to twice a week. Once was Weetabix, which absorbed more milk than we were given.

The porridge was certainly not up to Scotts Porridge Oats standard, but it did introduce me to soft brown sugar which I'd not seen/tasted before, and I fell in love.

I still enjoy an occasional bowl of porridge on cold evenings with a heaped spoonfull of soft brown ! It always brings memories flooding back.

In the late 50's/early 60's, cereals were still only twice a week.
John Rutley. Prep B & Coleridge B. 1958-1963.
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Re: Fascinating documentary footage of 1930s CH

Post by eucsgmrc »

I'm impressed by the clarity of everybody else's memories. I can't match that level of detail, but I do remember that the kitchens were completely refitted in (I think) 1955. I saw the old equipment lying outdoors, presumably awaiting some scrap merchant. It was very basic stuff - huge kettle-drum-shaped boilers, for example. I imagine it was what had been installed in 1902 (when it was presumably top-of-the-range for institutional catering).

The food when I first arrived in 1954 varied from dull to deplorable, but we rapidly learned to eat most of it, and it must have provided ample energy and nourishment. Private tuck was an essential comfort supplement. Before I left in 1962, the food had got MUCH better. I don't suppose present-day kids would appreciate it, though.

By the time I went home after my first term, CH had modified my behaviour in two important aspects. I would eagerly eat ANYTHING my mother offered, and I would stay in bed for as long as possible in the mornings. Sadly, I haven't been able to shake off these habits in later life.
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Re: Fascinating documentary footage of 1930s CH

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eucsgmrc wrote:I'm impressed by the clarity of everybody else's memories. I can't match that level of detail, but I do remember that the kitchens were completely refitted in (I think) 1955. I saw the old equipment lying outdoors, presumably awaiting some scrap merchant. It was very basic stuff - huge kettle-drum-shaped boilers, for example. I imagine it was what had been installed in 1902 (when it was presumably top-of-the-range for institutional catering).

The food when I first arrived in 1954 varied from dull to deplorable, but we rapidly learned to eat most of it, and it must have provided ample energy and nourishment. Private tuck was an essential comfort supplement. Before I left in 1962, the food had got MUCH better. I don't suppose present-day kids would appreciate it, though.

By the time I went home after my first term, CH had modified my behaviour in two important aspects. I would eagerly eat ANYTHING my mother offered, and I would stay in bed for as long as possible in the mornings. Sadly, I haven't been able to shake off these habits in later life.

Same here, I'm afraid !
John Rutley. Prep B & Coleridge B. 1958-1963.
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Re: Fascinating documentary footage of 1930s CH

Post by sejintenej »

eucsgmrc wrote: By the time I went home after my first term, CH had modified my behaviour in two important aspects. I would eagerly eat ANYTHING my mother offered, and I would stay in bed for as long as possible in the mornings. Sadly, I haven't been able to shake off these habits in later life.
JR concurred
For food it would be hard to get much worse than 1952 food (though I accept the experts' statement that pre-war was even worse) so consequently there is little I haven't eaten when offered. No, I have never been offered raw goats or sheeps' eyes but ................ However the Lady Superintendent did put me off tripe and I'm not a fan of gizzards which are a local speciality (too much grit for me).
Given that SWMBO doesn't have access, I can report that she and her cousins occasionally discuss the thousand ways of cooking mince developed in our poorest years. She still looks for more ways to cook it so in self preservation I take over the kitchen and cook what I like!
As for sleeping, after CH, many ghosters and years of work training I still get up at about 6am your time which can be a bore. Exceptionally, given the present downpour and gales I did go to bed at 9.30 this morning but that is the first time in decades!
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Re: Fascinating documentary footage of 1930s CH

Post by eucsgmrc »

sejintenej wrote:For food it would be hard to get much worse than 1952 food ...
Before my time, so I can't comment. But I did experience institutional food of that era, at a strange "camp" (long huts, actually) at St Mary's Bay in Kent where the LCC sent primary school kids for an occasional week's "educational holiday", i.e., respite for the parents. It was called "the school journey". But I digress. What sticks in my memory (as it stuck in my gullet) was the Crab Pie. We called it crab pie not because it was filled with crab meat (which, at that age, we wouldn't have liked anyway) but because it was full of unidentifiable strands of chewy stuff and flakes of bone-hard other stuff. In our minds, it was most likely achieved by collecting a bucket of little shore crabs and other detritus, and breaking them up with a few blows of a club hammer, before spreading them very thinly between two layers of basic pastry in a quarter-acre tray.

Skiffage pie was better, because somebody sieved out most of the bone/shell bits. Apart from that, it was pretty much the same product.
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