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Milk

Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2020 2:03 pm
by Otter
Thought I would add some levity while discussing the incredibly important issue of milk in boarding houses.

I remember in the mid 90s we got biblical quantities of milk delivered every weekday to every boarding house. A massive crate of 15 or 20 bottles of 2 pints each.

A lot of it went unused. Those who felt like it, were free to take vast quantities, a bottle or more each.

I occasionally took an entire bottle and drank it out of my large plastic measuring jug that I used for cup-a-soups. When I got to my seniors and meal attendance monitoring became lax, 2 pints of milk served as an entire meal if it was lousy weather and I didn't want to walk to dining hall.

I was recently reminded of this time in my life as my toddler son now takes that very measuring jug and loves vocalising into it to make funny noises, or just carrying it around the house proudly.

:drinkers:

Re: Milk

Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2020 4:27 pm
by J.R.
In Coleridge B, pre 1963, I don't remember any milk being delivered to the house.

There always seemed to be a SMALL quantity of milk available for the senior boys, as I recall, but I can't remember for the life of me, where it came from. I can only assume, direct from the dining hall, right next to the house.

Re: Milk

Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2020 4:48 pm
by sejintenej
J.R. wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2020 4:27 pm In Coleridge B, pre 1963, I don't remember any milk being delivered to the house.

There always seemed to be a SMALL quantity of milk available for the senior boys, as I recall, but I can't remember for the life of me, where it came from. I can only assume, direct from the dining hall, right next to the house.
Agreed. even as trades mon I don't know how it got to the house.
Some of us used to work (I repeat, WORK at homework etc) in the Scout Hut (we had a key legitimatly) in our spare time and used powdered milk when we could get it.
In primary school (until I was nine) we each had a small bottle every day and had to drink it.

Re: Milk

Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2020 4:49 pm
by Katharine
We certainly had milk delivered to the houses. It was before Thatcher the milk snatcher, so were we supposed to get 1/3 of a pint a day? The juniors drank theirs in the morning, the seniors could heat it for hot chocolate or coffee or similar in the evenings. I can’t remember whether anyone actually kept count to ensure everyone had their share.

Re: Milk

Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2020 5:43 pm
by scrub
I remember getting milk in cubes (like a wine bladder in a box) that fit into a little fridge. Must have been at least 20L in those, they seemed to just keep on coming. Can't remember there ever being a milk shortage :lol:

Re: Milk

Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2020 10:03 pm
by Great Plum
scrub wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2020 5:43 pm I remember getting milk in cubes (like a wine bladder in a box) that fit into a little fridge. Must have been at least 20L in those, they seemed to just keep on coming. Can't remember there ever being a milk shortage :lol:
I think they were called ‘milkpaks’ - they were an endless source of milk!

Once when I was in Maine B, accidentally a milkpak with 20l of thick double cream turned up instead - I remember someone having a pint of double cream milkshake and being very sick after!

Re: Milk

Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2020 11:52 pm
by eucsgmrc
What I remember from 1954-62 in Col A is a crate of milk in 1/3 pint bottles appearing in the dayroom at morning break every day. After PT (for that's what we had to do in morning break in those days) everybody could help themself to a bottle, and those who liked it would drink it on the spot. At the same time there was a distribution of biscuits from one of those big square tins that you never see nowadays. Thus refreshed, we went back to third and fourth period of lessons.

Plenty of us did not care for raw milk, so there were always plenty of bottles left over. Some of those were kept back by the monitors and used to make late hot chocolate/milky (instant) coffee after everybody else had gone to bed.

But I see that Sejintenej doesn't recall this. It might be a false memory, but it's quite a clear one.

Re: Milk

Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2020 8:39 am
by loringa
If I recall correctly, during the 70s it was delivered in milk churns daily to the boarding houses from the home farm dairy. On a Sunday, one of the trades (probably only in the junior houses) was to go to the dairy before breakfast and collect churns of fresh, home-made yoghurt and deliver them to the dining hall.

In the junior houses we were given a small number of biscuits which were distributed on a Wednesday, usually something plain such as Royal Scot but sometimes Barmouth biscuits (like circular 'longues du chat'). In the senior houses we had loaves of (very, very cheap and previously frozen sliced white) bread and margarine but towards the end of that decade the marge was replaced by EEC intervention butter which was much nicer. I seem to remember nobody ever used a knife but just wiped the bread on the still-wrapped butter.

The food in the 70s was spectacularly awful (as were most school dinners at the time) so these biscuits and bread and flab were hugely appreciated.

Re: Milk

Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2020 10:19 am
by sejintenej
eucsgmrc wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2020 11:52 pm
But I see that Sejintenej doesn't recall this. It might be a false memory, but it's quite a clear one.
That's why you got to university and I didn't! ;-)

Re: Milk

Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2020 11:38 am
by brian walling
My memories are very clear and identical to those of eucsgmrc, whose timing at CH I share (I was Ma A 53-60). There were always two crates of milk bottles delivered each morning before the break to the first window-sill in our day room, where you helped yourself after PT was over (together with the biscuits that eucsgmrc mentions). I believe that one of the "trades", assigned to a couple of the boys, was to clean up afterwards. They disposed of the unused milk, after setting aside enough for the monitors' late night coffee and cocoa drinking, then placed the crates and empty bottles outside the back of the house for pick-up. The daily biscuits in my early days all came from Prewett's Flour Millers at Horsham and they were devilishly hard! These later gave way to more conventional brands and types of biscuits.

Re: Milk

Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2020 1:01 pm
by eucsgmrc
brian walling wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2020 11:38 am ... to clean up afterwards. They disposed of the unused milk, after setting aside enough for the monitors' late night coffee and cocoa drinking, then placed the crates and empty bottles outside the back of the house for pick-up.
"Setting aside": we couldn't keep the bottles back, so, in Col A, the reserved milk was poured into a large black enamelled saucepan and simply left in a relatively safe place in the dayroom. Woe betide anybody who tipped it over or dropped anything in it. On hot summer days it might go off a bit before the evening. That was accepted as normal - after all, fridges were not part of most people's daily lives. It was an era when even the fanciest households were used to relying on pantry, larder and meat safe to keep food, and daily shopping to have fresh food. Many of our families were buying their first ever fridges in that decade.

Re: Milk

Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2020 9:54 pm
by richardb
I was struggling to remember what happened in the 70s but loringa is right about what happened in the houses.

Re: Milk

Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2020 7:54 am
by brian walling
eucsgmrc wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2020 1:01 pm "Setting aside": we couldn't keep the bottles back, so, in Col A, the reserved milk was poured into a large black enamelled saucepan and simply left in a relatively safe place in the dayroom.....
Again, identical in all details in Ma A, except that our large saucepan was an aluminium one.

At the time, as I recall, most of us drank the mid-morning milk, not because we really liked it, but out of obligation, because it was said to be good for us and the growth of our bodies (calcium, good for bones etc). I conformed and always drank it diligently. Starting from my earliest primary school days in London up to leaving CH, I calculate that I must have drunk some 4,000 of those small ⅓ pint bottles. Today, almost 60 years after leaving CH and still relatively fit and agile, I'm inclined to accept that the little bit of brainwashing about "good for you" was probably justified and did me some good.

Re: Milk

Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2020 11:50 am
by wurzel
Pre merger 80's Yellow buckets containing a bag of milk from school farm accessed via a spout which stuck out the keyhole shaped hole in the bucket (like a big wine box)

Post Merger a counter top fridge thing in each brew room containing a cardboard box with a bag of milk in it accessed via a little tube that dnagled out the bottom through a tap arrangement

Re: Milk

Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2020 2:00 pm
by Florida Blue
As far as I remember, mid to late 1940's Prep.A & B gathered in the assembly hall for the mid morning milk break with Prewett's biscuits. Set-up courtesy Jack Hards & fellow bokker Wells (no relation). Some staff also in attendance I believe. No recollection of milk in dayrooms in those days.