Bread and dripping

Share your memories and stories from the Hertford Christ's Hospital School, which closed in 1985, when the two schools integrated to the Horsham site....

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MaryB
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Re: Bread and dripping

Post by MaryB »

Between 1964 and 1971 there was roast dinner on Sundays at Hertford - and for one house a week it would be "our roast" which meant (hooray) roast not boiled potatoes and Yorkshire pudding. But if it was the (approximately) one Sunday a term there was pork not beef (they were all "flat meat with fat" really) then there was no Yorkshire pud - and the house in question would have no redress and feel very hard done by.

I still remember the smell of the cabbage when the lid came off the big tin pan... a steamy, green whoosh.
Sunday could be a very hungry day at Hertford...... especially if you didn't like rice krispies and had run out of home jam.
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Re: Bread and dripping

Post by Angela Woodford »

Mary! It's you! How lovely. Welcome to the Forum! Fantastic.

What about the Sunday lunch pudding? That could be quite filling. Was there anything you liked? Admittedly, when it was apple pie, there were sometimes bits in the apple quite uncannily like toenail trimmings.

A bit offputting.
"Baldrick, you wouldn't recognise a cunning plan if it painted itself purple, and danced naked on top of a harpsichord singing "Cunning plans are here again.""
MaryB
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Re: Bread and dripping

Post by MaryB »

I think you mean toenail slush..... I hate to be negative, but all the Sunday puddings involved the curdling effect of fruit juice and custard, which I still don't care for.

Friday puddings - now they were something else again, particuarly treacle stodge, and the chocolate one that came with chocolate sauce as well. A bit like Sainsburys TTD quadruple chocolate biscuits. No wonder we - how can I put this - were mostly Not Thin. Come to think of it, marge and marmalade on fried bread probably didn't help. Oh dear, I feel all queasy - time for a nice lettuce leaf? I don't think so somehow.
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Re: Bread and dripping

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MaryB wrote:Friday puddings - now they were something else again, particuarly treacle stodge, and the chocolate one that came with chocolate sauce as well. No wonder we - how can I put this - were mostly Not Thin.
I'm meant to be cooking dinner right now - but can't resist such thoughts (goes to check casserole)...

That stodge on Fridays! Although I produce from time to time a steamed pudding for a special request, I have never achieved that strange rubbery honeycomb texture of the various Friday stodges, I'm happy to say.

Mary, I remember the occasion when we were queueing next to one another to try on our needlework for DR and SWSNBN. You went first, and DR surveyed you with a great deal of thought, before nodding her head earnestly and quivering her jowls.

"You have a trim figure" she pronounced.

I was next. I think that I'd put on even more weight since I'd begun my garment and I prayed that it wouldn't pop open at the bust in front of the two dragon women. They looked at me, and SWSNBN averted her eyes. DR gave a curt nod of dismissal, whilst making a sort of muffled "oofing" sound. I fled.

See, Mary? A trim figure!

(Weirdly, I was thinking about you this morning, having encountered an article by a writer with the same name as your second name - which I've never forgotten.)
"Baldrick, you wouldn't recognise a cunning plan if it painted itself purple, and danced naked on top of a harpsichord singing "Cunning plans are here again.""
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Re: Bread and dripping

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Friday lunches were the worst, fish usually inedible, and rubbery indigestable stodge for pudding ...yuk ! No wonder I couldn't concentrate in double biology on a Friday afternoon, wonder how anyone else could either! Things got better in sixth form when a few of us sneaked out (or were we allowed to go, can't remember!?) to Woolworths after lunch, and bought a big bag of broken biscuits for 1p! Their loose caramel biscuits were probably about 4 or 5p for a quarter of a pound in those days, but really delicious, especially when fresh, mmm, never been able to buy anything like them since, will have to try your tim-tams, Kerren!
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Re: Bread and dripping

Post by Angela Woodford »

Angela Woodford wrote: I think that I'd put on even more weight since I'd begun my garment and I prayed that it wouldn't pop open at the bust in front of the two dragon women. They looked at me, and SWSNBN averted her eyes. DR gave a curt nod of dismissal, whilst making a sort of muffled "oofing" sound. I fled.
I remember those loose caramel broken biscuits in my day! Amazing! See above for the result they had on my shape. The lady at the Woollies biscuit counter would shovel them into a clear plastic bag, and the crumbs from the broken-ness clung to the plastic in a totally alluring scoff-me-down way. The caramel coating was similar to a "chocolate" bar available at the time called Caramac, which I suppose must have been discontinued years ago.

A moment of tastebud nostalgia here! :roll: Also for the eager thump of our lace-up clomphy boys shoes on the bare wooden boards of the Woollies' floor!
"Baldrick, you wouldn't recognise a cunning plan if it painted itself purple, and danced naked on top of a harpsichord singing "Cunning plans are here again.""
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Re: Bread and dripping

Post by englishangel »

Oh you can still get Caramac, you would probably find it too sweet for your 'mature' tastebuds nowadays (I don't :roll: )

I also used to buy a mixed bag of white and brown chocolate buttons with hundreds and thousands from the pick'n'mix. They have some proper name which escapes me.

Also (is this a sign of old age that I can remember this?) I would buy a block of dried dates, before decimalisation it was 1s/3d and after decimalisation it was 6 and half pence.
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Re: Bread and dripping

Post by Angela Woodford »

Rainbow drops?
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Re: Bread and dripping

Post by mvgrogan »

no, they were like coloured puffed rice - 4p a bag in my day!!

I've been wracking my brain cos I ussed to get the same from "Ye Olde Worlde Sweetie Shoppe" in Leicester.... a mixed quarter of milk & white...... erm...... Razzies? maybe?

Mx
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Re: Bread and dripping

Post by englishangel »

"If a man speaks, and there isn't a woman to hear him, is he still wrong?"
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Re: Bread and dripping

Post by fra828 »

Ah yes Angela, those clodhopper shoes-chestnut brown when polished! We used to polish them on cellar steps in our houses didn't we? Every so often we would be fitted for a 'new' pair by the shoe-man, his name escapes me! They were rarely brand-new shoes though, usually a pair someone else had grown out of. And in summer we had those very flat sandals; probably worn with white ankle socks, can remember the summer dresses were various striped colours, I always seemed to have had brown or green, but the other colours were blue and pink-as far as I can remember . Sorry gone off thread now- bit far removed from bread and dripping! :lol:
MaryB
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Re: Bread and dripping

Post by MaryB »

Yes- still off topic -flat Clarks sandals with crepe soles and flower shaped cut outs - sort of slip-ons, with a semi-functional buckle, worn wth short fawn socks which went orange from residual shoe polish (but not as orange as 3's games socks....).

Dresses: when we first went there were still some "zephyrs" left, and I think most new 5s in 1964 had these - with our pinnies we looked as if we'd come straight from Jane Eyre's Lowood. I seem to recall that the zephyrs didn't come with us to senior houses the following summer term (there was much tutting by Lil about the state of what we did bring with us from 5s). The next tranche of dresses had narrow coloured stripes, but then there were the ones with wide coloured and narrow white stripes. I wanted a blue one and finally got one for my UV year, but mostly I had a coffee stripe one which I hated (too drab) and a green one ditto (too bright). The blue one (just right Goldilocks) was my "Set 1" dress so I probably only wore it twice (set 1 was for special occasions and the laundry was juggled to make sure it came round the right weeks: in the 6th form the blue striped blouses with 3/4 length sleeves were set 1).

Somewhere there's a picture of 6th form girls marching, eyes right, in what look like zephyrs and panamas- deeply unflattering to the 18 year old figure. It might be the quartercentenary, or perhaps a St Matthews Day in the 50s.
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Re: Bread and dripping

Post by Katharine »

When I was doing my DofE Gold I had to work in the school kitchens every Sunday as my Service to the Community. I was the first person from 6s to get that far so wasn't told that you had to be quick to get your name down and then you went into town to chat to old ladies and make them tea or help at a nursery (I think) As so many of my year were doing their Golds they filled all the CH places in town and Muggins ended up in the school kitchens. While I was there, we did have roast meat every Sunday - I have heaved some of those roasts out of the oven and sliced them. I hated using that slicer and am sure it would not meet present day health and safety requirements, I was terrified I would slice my thumbs off or something! We did have fruit pie and custard every Sunday too - at least that was what it said on the menu. It was only apple that was cooked as a pie the other fruits were cooked separately from the pastry. I think we mixed and rolled out the pastry for those too.

Summer uniform - I don't remember having sandals, I can only remember the standard shoes all year round. We polished them down in the cellar in 6s. I'm surprised you had any zephyrs left in 1964, Mary. I thought they had all gone by then. I can't remember whether the striped dresses started coming in in my first or second year. Unlike other changes of uniform, this was gradual osmosis. When Sunday uniform (Coatfrocks and yellow dresses) changed, the whole school changed into the new grey pinafore dresses at the same time, but the everyday summer dresses were different. You could look around the dining hall and see so many different varieties in use at the same time. Did the school get say three bolts of striped cotton and then have dresses made up in various sizes in those colours that year? It certainly seemed like that to me.
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Re: Bread and dripping

Post by midget »

In 3s we did our shoe cleaning in the cloakroom. There was acupboard at the end of the row of basins for the brushes etc.

Food was restricted by rationing most of the time I was at Hertford, but I must say that bread rationing (which only started AFTER the war) didn't seem to make any difference to the quantities we were allowed.

Summer dresses were all sorts of types, very pretty flowery ones for juniors, and if you were small you were still wearing "junior" frocks in UIV. There were various checks, mostly blue and white, but some with a bit of red too. Socks were nasty beige things that we had to reinforce before the first wearing so that they would last longer.
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Re: Bread and dripping

Post by Angela Woodford »

Pretty, flowery dresses, Maggie? I'm amazed! What did the seniors wear?
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