Hertford Memories - The Book

[Kim2s70-77]

I'd forgotten about Convent Eggs!! I had my twins (fraternal) at 42!! I think my ovaries were 'going down firing'! Definitely well-fed and healthy - they were a month early and still weighed 8 lbs!! I wonder if there is any statistical significance in the number of multiples born to Hertford OBs?? We are a very small sampling here - and yet there seem to be MANY sets of twins!
Maybe it has something to do with ingesting large quantities of Bluebell around Menarche, or melamine mugs, or fishy silver???

[chaosriddenyears]

Could be, I loved them.

So did I.

[icomefromalanddownunder]

Yes, go for it! Presumably Hazel Rolf's book (which I would love to read too) is about an earlier era, given her dates at Hertford.

Hi Guys

Just found this thread. Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

Firstly, Mary, did your copy of Blue Skirts arrive safely? My sister promised me that she sent it, but I forgot to contact you at the time (I think that you had said that you were going on holiday and by the time you had returned I had completely forgotten about the book). If it didn't arrive I can send you the copy I found at Amazon - after I have disciplined my sister.

Munch - please do it. Even if our era has already been covered by someone else, I am sure that it wasn't written in anything like your inimitable style.

As for libel and defamation: if the events are recounted as an individual's memories or experiences of the acts of another, rather than as a tirade against the acts and the perpetrator, then I can't see how it can be deemed to be libellous or defamatory. Bit like making 'I' statements, rather than accusatory ones I am, however, not a lawyer, and haven't yet remembered to consult my law student daughter about this. Which I will do, because I really, really want Munch to do this.

Oh, and if you would like to include photographs, I have some which you are welcome to use, and I'm sure that Pam, Diana and others would be if asked.


xxxxx

[Angela Woodford]

I wonder.... A Food chapter?

Would Katharine be willing to return to her Mon's Duties and replicate a week's Menu?

As pinned up at the kitchen end of Dining Hall?

Deeply aromatic... the Kippers? or very very cheap Fish Fingers? Was that Saturday breakfast? Definitely Steak Pie for lunch on Thursdays, followed by some version of Spong. Saturday lunch - alternating weeks - Stew, or Sausage Hotpot. Followed by Spong. Sunday breakfast in House - yes! Rice Krispies and green ham!

The orange puddle of Spag and cold rubbery toast on a Wednesday!

Teatime salad! Grated cheese, thick rubbery lettuce leaves with that weird "salad cream" of egg and flour in a white jug, which mixed to a vile pink cream with slices of vinegary beetroot.

Superb rice pudding! Oh yum!

The Ruler of all the Universe is chivvying me to stop typing, for a food shopping trip.

What will I now choose?

[Fjgrogan]

Scrambled eggs, bulked out with bread which wasn't always mixed in enough to make it unidentifiable. Actually I enjoyed that and the fresh bread and the porridge and would have as many helpings as I could. Also enjoyed sausage hotpot which I occasionally try to replicate. Tinned tomatoes always went with fishcakes; to this day I loathe tinned tomatoes. Resurrection pie - a mixture of leftover veg - peas, beans, spaghetti - under a pastry crust, or leftover veg mixed into cheese mashed potato. Kedgeree. Odd that I remember the fishy things, but not the meat? Herrings - I loved the taste but hated the bones. Someone used to spread marmalade on kippers! Is my memory playing tricks, or did we have rice crispies for Sunday tea in house, rather than breakfast?

[Ajarn Philip]

The Ruler of all the Universe is chivvying me to stop typing, for a food shopping trip.
What will I now choose?

Keep typing, Angela, every time!

[Mid A 15]

Angela, if you are going to do this don't forget the excellent, evocative anecdotes you have already posted here.

They deserve a wider audience.

[Fjgrogan]

I have been trying to finish re-reading Hazel's book in a hurry to send to Angela. On Saturday evening - Midsummer's Eve - I read a wonderfully detailed description of Sixes Midsummer Revels. I wished I could have distributed it right then to all and sundry, but my brain was definitely not in technical mode - like everything else in my life it varies seasonally. Theoretically it should be in top gear just now, but sadly not! Perhaps I shall try scanning it, and sending it as an e-mail attachment to Angela, who probably has a better idea than I do how to put it on the forum?

[Mid A 15]

I have been trying to finish re-reading Hazel's book in a hurry to send to Angela. On Saturday evening - Midsummer's Eve - I read a wonderfully detailed description of Sixes Midsummer Revels. I wished I could have distributed it right then to all and sundry, but my brain was definitely not in technical mode - like everything else in my life it varies seasonally. Theoretically it should be in top gear just now, but sadly not! Perhaps I shall try scanning it, and sending it as an e-mail attachment to Angela, who probably has a better idea than I do how to put it on the forum?

Our revered forum leader Julian would probably be able to help or advise.

[Angela Woodford]

Hey, thank you Frances - I'm really looking forward to this new source of remembrances!

But Andy is right! I'm not skilled at scannings and attachments, although if The Book project gets going, I shall just have to learn! It would be lovely if Katharine were to leap back into her GA and reproduce a menu - that would indeed need scanning in for her authentic handwriting! It was impeccably neat, ISTR.

I love "Resurrection Pie"! We just called it "Veg Pie"; perhaps one of the nicer tea-time things? I'd forgotten fish cakes with tinned tomatoes.

The thing about "Blue Skirts" and "Bombs and Boys" is that they are both an account of an individual girl's progress through the years, but we have loads of memories from Old Girls; everyone having their own perspective on a routine which didn't vary that much during the DR years! So how about collating our memories under, say, Uniform, New Girl, Sporting Stuff, Chapel, Rock'n'Roll...that sort of thing... different experiences, as opposed to year by year?

Where is Maggie's verse of the Foundation Hymn?

Gottit! (Copy'n'paste)

We who once at Hertford languished,
Not allowed to curl our hair,
Letters read, possessions censored
Things have changed now we're not there.
Modern sisters, cherish freedom!
Nourish it whate'er the price!
Make the most of time at Housey
Luck like that is not found twice.

Marvellous - copyright fees, Maggie?

[MaryB]

Continuing the food theme - what about the smell of 300 boiled eggs? Revolting, creeping across the Dining Hall accompanied by the sound of tapping and cracking. It was entirely a matter of luck whether your particular egg was hard and rubbery or almost raw (salmonella not invented then.....) and even if it was perfectly soft boiled it somehow never tasted quite right.

We had boiled eggs on my very first morning (20 August 1964), and in the pervading strangeness this food that should have been familiar and reassuring (I'd had a boiled egg for breakfast on weekdays right through primary school) and was actually inedible was the final straw, precipitating a week of solid crying. I didn't win in the homesickness stakes though - Fran Holmes cried for almost the whole term!

I think eggs, scrambled or boiled, were generally Wednesdays. Kippers (an even worse smell) were down to a few times a term. Did we sometimes have sausages, possibly with the dreaded tinned tomatoes? Porridge in the winter - on Tuesdays? Default breakfast was cornflakes, bacon and fried bread, with Shreddies or Weetabix on other days and of course Rice Krispies on Sundays. Isn't it interesting how all these cereals are still available unchanged?

[MKM]

Did we sometimes have sausages, possibly with the dreaded tinned tomatoes?

I remember sausages for breakfast on Thursdays - my favourite day as the sausages were usually followed by a letter from my mother.

[Ajarn Philip]

Favourite Horsham breakfast; sausages, sliced bread soaked in the fat thereof, and marmalade.

Probably illegal today...

[kerrensimmonds]

Marmalade on crispy and greasy double-fried fried bread. Heaven (and also probably not allowed these days!). Tried to replicate but to no avail.

[Ajarn Philip]

Marmalade on crispy and greasy double-fried fried bread. Heaven (and also probably not allowed these days!). Tried to replicate but to no avail.

My response is something along the lines of the famous scene in 'When Harry Met Sally'...

I agree, haven't ever been quite able to replicate. It's all in the fried bread...