Quick questions and (maybe) answers Hertford Memories thread

[kerrensimmonds]

Lent and Advent are both penitential seasons, so the altar coverings etc. would have been purple. White for Easter, Red for Christmas and other festivals like Whitsunday, Green for Trinity.....

[Angela Woodford]

Lent was purple, then!

Did you give up anything for Lent, Kerren?

[kerrensimmonds]

Can't remember!

[englishangel]

Back to the tea, I took two dessertspoonfuls of sugar in mine to cover the taste. Then I gave up sugar for Lent when I was 14, that tea was DISGUSTING. Of course when I got home and back to my PG Tips it was much better but I still couldn't wait for Easter to put sugar in my tea again. Easter morning "coloured eggs for breakfast" and sugar in my tea, yeeeurch!. I have never taken it since, and if someone even uses the spoon they have used to stir a sugared tea I can't drink it. Sugared coffee I can just about cope with especailly at 5am when working nights.

[Angela Woodford]

I've just been talking on the phone to my marvellous godmother - she's 94 now!

She was at the Royal Masonic School, late 20's, early 30's. They were served tea one day, coffee the next, from a large discoloured metal urn at the top of each dining table.

"That sounds familiar!" I said.

"But the thing was" she went on "we simply couldn't tell which was the tea and which the coffee... "

40 years and a World War later, things hadn't changed much!

[Jo]

I think I only remember getting coffee for Sunday breakfast, and then possibly only after the food strike. We were allowed to make our own hot drinks in house kitchens (although I don't remember being routinely allowed to as a junior - that privilege either came with seniority or the rules relaxed for everyone later on) - but I only remember urns of coffee on Sunday mornings - the rest of the time I am sure it was tea. Or maybe it really was that difficult to tell the difference

[englishangel]

I think you are correct Jo, I don't remember coffee in my early days. Barbara (Euterpe) seems to be too busy to be on here at present but I am sure she would remember.

[midget]

We certainly had coffee, but not very often. Even then it was infinitely better tnan the tea. I wonder if rationing had anything to do with it, and it was easier to get ersatz coffee than tea?

[gma]

I remember the coffee being exceeding milky and sickly and can only drink black coffee now. I loved the tea providing I got it from the first brew and as we were in 2s we were closer to the kitcen doors so I think we got it quite quickly before it had had time to stew up, I still like to drink tea from a bowl, especially when I'm not well.

[midget]

There was only one brew in the giant copper used for the tea. As soon as the teabag had been withdrawn, a bucket of milk was thrown in, and the tea run off into the urns. Perhaps the coffee was made with "Camp" and more milk?

[kerrensimmonds]

I don't remember us having coffee... though there has been discussion on this Forum about the dining hall tea urns being used to brew coffee on a Sunday. Honestly, I cannot remember that.
The coffee (and hot chocolate) which I remember was made in house, in the kitchen, after I got to the upper sixth. Maybe the lower sixth, but my memory of those days is so very hazy!
You probably don't know that DRW's brother once sent me a box of Nestle goodies (including a tub of 'Milo') and I ate all the contents by spoon (though thinking back I might have shared with others if I could). He sent me the box, because he had been so embarrassed that, in a tour of 2's, she had imperiously opened the locker door of 2.11 and, guess what, the whole contents fell out onto the floor. She erupted, and he felt responsible!
Whoops!

[Katharine]

Kerren, I agree with you that I don't remember any coffee being served with meals. We certainly had it when we were in The Study. I think from about Lower V you could have it in the evening made in the kitchen. I seem to remember a milk ration that LIV and UIV had at break time in the morning but the more senior forms had their milk in the evening.

[midget]

UV and VIth could keep the morning breaktime milk until the evening, and were then allowed to make cocoa etc. This was OK in the winter but could be dodgy in summer with no fridge. We used the "jug in bowl of water and wet cloth over it" technique, which sometimes worked.

[jhopgood]

UV and VIth could keep the morning breaktime milk until the evening, and were then allowed to make cocoa etc. This was OK in the winter but could be dodgy in summer with no fridge. We used the "jug in bowl of water and wet cloth over it" technique, which sometimes worked.

Don't mean to intrude, but this is what I had to do as a swab for the House monitors. I had to empty a load of morning break bottles of milk into a saucepan, which was kept in the dayroom until the evening, when I had to take it up to Matron's gas stove and boil it. It foamed and bubbled quite a bit, but I can't remember it curdling, so it must have been ok. I can't remember doing it in the summer though.
I also had to smuggle flab (margarine) back from dining hall for use on their toast. I got caught once when I also had to collect the bread for the toast, which required two hands, one of which was already holding the jam jar with the flab in. Not a good experience.

[Angela Woodford]

There was only one brew in the giant copper used for the tea. As soon as the teabag had been withdrawn, a bucket of milk was thrown in, and the tea run off into the urns. Perhaps the coffee was made with "Camp" and more milk?

Sunday morning coffee! I think Maggie is right about how the coffee must have been made. Possibly with the cheapest brand of liquid coffee flavouring available. I used to taste Sunday morning coffee occasionally - not too bad - running a bit from the urn into the stained pale blue melamine mug - sip sip - it was incredibly hot, anyway.

I can never see a Rice Krispie without remembering Sunday morning breakfast in House. The tablecloths were very well stained with the week's spillages by then. Into the malodorous white fabric would then be ground bits of Rice Krispies blended with the crunchiness of white granulated sugar and the occasional addition of grapefruit juice. Anyone with a grapefruit from their home fruit would divvy it up to share on Sunday morning. Then there was the oval tin platter of fatty ham with a greenish sheen, and marmalade in a tin jug for the bread. That marmalade wasn't too bad...

By the evenings, especially in warm weather, the milk that sat by the back door in the kitchen, had usually taken on a slightly "off" smell. I know that we had to scrub out the tin cannister. It was a horrible job. The dishcloth in the kitchen must have been infested with every bug imaginable. I remember scrubbing the sides of the milk container, feeling slightly nauseated. Not a favourite task.

Yerrgh!