October 1966

School dinners, derided by many, didn’t do me any harm. I wasn’t too keen on faggots wrapped in pale streaky bacon but I liked stew and I loved suet-topped meat pie with mash and gravy. And desserts; rice pudding with a blob of jam, crumble and custard, lemon meringue pie, jam roly poly, pink blancmange, gypsy tart… lovely! God bless our dinner ladies.

John Greenland, my good friend and classmate sat at the same table as me on first dinners. Other than the odd time we got kicked off our table to accommodate those involved in lunchtime activities – such as inter-house sports fixtures, who were given priority over first sitting regulars – we’d take our usual places on Graham Hill’s table. Facing us across the table was Mary, a good looking third year girl with an eye-catching chest, and Angela Barnes, a chatterbox blonde from 2A1, who lived on Toronto Road. Angela was the life and soul of our table. She’d talk to anyone and everyone, including monosyllabic first years. Anyone would warm to her personality.

I don’t remember much about the first time I served. All I know is when the call came; I was nervous. As anyone who ever dropped and smashed a plate in a canteen knows, the reaction of the masses when the horrible moment comes is instant and merciless. My biggest fear is that it would happen to me.

I know we started off with a jug of water and eight plastic beakers ready and waiting at each the table. So what happened next?

In my mind I see myself joining a queue… getting a serving tray… counting eight knives, forks and spoons…receiving a big rectangular container of meat pie (or whatever)… eight stacked plates… a dish of mashed potato… a dish of vegetables. Did we carry all that in one go? I’m not sure.

Table leaders sliced up the meat pie. Once they’d slapped the first piece on a plate, it got passed to the person at the far end the table. The mash and the veg we passed between ourselves. When the table leader had finished dishing out the grub, he/she laid the tray with the empty pie container on the floor and then mumbled a quick ‘for what we are about to receive...’

After the main course the table leader collected the plates and piled everything back on the tray. As server, I think I dumped the dirty plates, dishes and cutlery at the near end of the serving hatch and then presented my tray at the hall end hatch for eight pre-stacked bowls, a large rectangular container of dessert, and perhaps a jug of custard. And that, other than taking the dessert dishes back to the hatch when everyone had finished, was that.

School dinner was my main meal of the day. At home, those of us who’d eaten a school dinner had butties for tea. Then we switched on the telly to get it warmed up for five o’clock, when programmes began. On a typical day we might get a couple of cartoons (Deputy Dawg/Hector Heathcote/Tom and Jerry) and an episode of (something like) Robinson Crusoe. Then, as the news came on and Dad arrived home from work, we disappeared out of the way. Seven day weeks weren’t unusual for Dad, a painter and decorator for Ward and Partners. After eating butties at work he was ready for a hot meal when he came home, which he expected to eat in peace and quiet.

As provider to his five sons and little baby girl, Dad worked tirelessly to keep his children fed, clothed and respectable. The Welsh born son of an Irishman, Dad was a deep thinker who rarely opened up. Nor was he one for small talk. Indeed, his application of the carrot and stick method of child development came carrot-free, swift and brutal. Each of us knew what a thick ear and a good hiding felt like, and though we recognised the danger signs as we got older, we were always wary. Perhaps Dad was made that way. Perhaps, with all the pressure and responsibility he carried, he just didn’t have time to indulge us with a softer, more patient approach. Either way, if any of us got on his wrong side we took the consequences and suffered the misery. Getting hit was by no means a daily event but the threat was ever present and enough to keep us in line, most of the time. 

Ron Davies

Keeping out of Dad’s way was easy when the weather was fine. If I wasn’t throwing a tennis ball up against the front wall of our Crundale Road home, and twisting in mid air to head it into the bushes behind me (in my mind I was Ron Davies), I was out playing football. If I wasn’t with Paul in Wingham Close, or with Stan, Paul and Clive in Leeds Square, I was with Clive, Paul, Stan and up to thirty others on Beechings playing fields.

But on the 21^st October, I didn’t go anywhere.  I just stared at the television screen as a horrifying story unfolded. A landslide in Wales had destroyed a school. Children had been killed, lots of them, in a place called Aberfan. I was shaken, and not just because I had a Welsh dad, Welsh relations, and brothers the same age as those poor children. Cameras at the scene showed people still working desperately to clear mud and rubble. But it was all too late. The children of Aberfan had died in their classrooms that morning, just five minutes after they’d sung All Things Bright and Beautiful in assembly.