Brew Rooms: A Portal to the Bowels of Hell?

[marty]

The Maine A brew room would have given Gordon Ramsay kittens. It had all the obligatory bits of food stuck to the ceiling - pasta, butter, tea-bags etc and much much more besides. Bread would always be ripped open from the middle and not the top, allowing any remaining slices to go off far quicker. We once even had a demonstration in roll call on how to open a loaf of bread in the correct way! Knives were non-existent apart from the odd one pilfered from dining hall so butter was spread simply by open the pack and smearing it directly on to the toast. Most parents recoiled in horror at the sight of stubs of butter with one end encrusted in mighty white crumbs. And it didn't stop there. The toaster was inevitably used to alleviate boredom as pupils took to holding the empty bread wrapper up against the hot metal sides, causing an imprint of mighty white to be left - I supposed it brightened the place up a bit. Milk came in big square cardboard boxes and went in the milk machine (not the fridge). As explained knives were few and far between so scissors had to be found if you wanted to cut it open. Ah, the joys...

[Richard Ruck]

Milk came in big square cardboard boxes and went in the milk machine (not the fridge). As explained knives were few and far between so scissors had to be found if you wanted to cut it open. Ah, the joys...

We had milk in churns direct from the farm. There WAS a ladle, I think, but mostly a succession of grubby hands clutching mugs would reach down into the churn for a dunk. Nice!

Re. butter (butter? luxury!) - this method of spreading margarine was in use in my time, and probably dates back to when either packets of margarine or pre-sliced loaves were invented.

[Mrs C.]

Milk came in big square cardboard boxes and went in the milk machine (not the fridge). As explained knives were few and far between so scissors had to be found if you wanted to cut it open. Ah, the joys...

We had milk in churns direct from the farm. There WAS a ladle, I think, but mostly a succession of grubby hands clutching mugs would reach down into the churn for a dunk. Nice!

Re. butter (butter? luxury!) - this method of spreading margarine was in use in my time, and probably dates back to when either packets of margarine or pre-sliced loaves were invented.

... and is still used now!

[Richard Ruck]

Milk came in big square cardboard boxes and went in the milk machine (not the fridge). As explained knives were few and far between so scissors had to be found if you wanted to cut it open. Ah, the joys...

We had milk in churns direct from the farm. There WAS a ladle, I think, but mostly a succession of grubby hands clutching mugs would reach down into the churn for a dunk. Nice!

Re. butter (butter? luxury!) - this method of spreading margarine was in use in my time, and probably dates back to when either packets of margarine or pre-sliced loaves were invented.

... and is still used now!

Glad to hear it! I'm all for tradition.....

[cj]

We had milk in churns direct from the farm. There WAS a ladle, I think, but mostly a succession of grubby hands clutching mugs would reach down into the churn for a dunk. Nice!

That sounds so archaic!! Had potatoes been discovered when you were at school?

[FrogBoxed]

Glad to hear the mural's still in Col B. I was quite attached to that!

As for spreading butter without a knife, we did that in the girls' houses too. And I seem to recall there were some butter-coloured stains on the ceiling, but not (often) butter, it was too precious for making buttery toast with...

Ah Mighty White... I'd forgotten that was where my life-long love of the stuff arose!

[Richard Ruck]

We had milk in churns direct from the farm. There WAS a ladle, I think, but mostly a succession of grubby hands clutching mugs would reach down into the churn for a dunk. Nice!

That sounds so archaic!! Had potatoes been discovered when you were at school?

No, we just ate mud and tree bark!

[englishangel]

Mud and tree bark, you were lucky, we had to make do with the scrapings off our soles on a slice of brick.

[graham]

According to one of my reliable sources, this sort of behaviour did indeed make a comeback, but went by the name of 'bockering'.

RR is quite correct - during the 90's at least 'bockering' was a common occurence in senior houses. It was only really the UF that were made to do jobs and these were normally basic tasks such as making coffee, toast etc for grecians, going to the tuck shop or similar, and were an inconvenience more than anything else (but could be made more enjoyable by using butter from the floor/ adding 'extra ingredients' and watching them being ingested).

Some of my friends were ordered to go to Horsham to buy cigs for Grecians on occasion and weren't given the money to buy them - this normally led to a whip-round of the year to help the person involved. I suppose there are always going to be people who abuse the system, whether it's an official one or a totally illegal one. I'm glad to hear that the new system of having squits through deps in one house has all but eliminated bockering. Kicking someone out of the best chair in the TV room cause they're younger is one thing, but bockering always seemed to go too far.

[Spoonbill]

I remember them milk-churns like it was yesterday. They'd be brought up from Home Farm on a flatbed truck before morning break and dumped by a table outside the brew room (on which people would've placed mugs, jugs etc. for filling). Then a big ape like me who was physically capable of lifting a full milk-churn would clumsily fill the said receptacles, lovingly pouring milk all over the table in the process (and the floor, and my shoes). Amazingly, hernias were unheard of.

I didn't know houses had gone back to being squits-to-Deps. Sounds rather nasty. Back in the bad old pre-Junior/Senior house days, bullying was seen as being caused by the mix of ages, with old lags being driven crazy by irritating 2nd Formers etc. Glad I'm not still at CH.

[Great Plum]

Milk came in big square cardboard boxes and went in the milk machine (not the fridge). As explained knives were few and far between so scissors had to be found if you wanted to cut it open. Ah, the joys...

We had milk in churns direct from the farm. There WAS a ladle, I think, but mostly a succession of grubby hands clutching mugs would reach down into the churn for a dunk. Nice!

Re. butter (butter? luxury!) - this method of spreading margarine was in use in my time, and probably dates back to when either packets of margarine or pre-sliced loaves were invented.

The butter is of course the cheapest imaginable nd is NPO butter (Non - profit organisations!!!)

[Laura M]

NPO butter is essentially salty lard isn't it. My favourite method of applying it without a knfe was the open one end and use the butter rather like a pritt stick to get it on the toast.

[Great Plum]

NPO butter is essentially salty lard isn't it. My favourite method of applying it without a knfe was the open one end and use the butter rather like a pritt stick to get it on the toast.

I would still do that at home if allowed!

[Vonny]

NPO butter is essentially salty lard isn't it. My favourite method of applying it without a knfe was the open one end and use the butter rather like a pritt stick to get it on the toast.

I would still do that at home if allowed!

[Euterpe13]

NPO butter is essentially salty lard isn't it. My favourite method of applying it without a knfe was the open one end and use the butter rather like a pritt stick to get it on the toast.

just for info, this is not just a CH habit - both of mine ( KES) also did this... think Laura may still do so !