CHURCH HALL DINNERS
English school dinners of the 1950’s, once tasted never forgotten…
CHURCH HALL DINNERS belongs to the following groups:
All Things Poetic, Artistic, Philosophical, Creative, Talented, and Unknown, Freedom In Words & Art and Vibration in Art and Verse - VAVoom!A crocodile of infants
march in regiment to lunch,
a mouth watering feast of welfare state.
How well we all ate.
A fusty, come fuggy and slightly sludgy
aroma of liver and cabbage awash,
mashed potato, pithy and lumpy,
dissolving in a progressively thickening slush.
The 50’s stiffness, square cars, full skirts,
surround the walkers on the path passed the church,
from school, to the hall,
pass the cross, into hell.
Long trestle tables, tin jugs and splinters,
slim forms, short socks, green and grey jumpers.
No talking, just praying, lie through our teeth,
play with the plate full of dished up welfare feast.
Green clad dinner ladies stand
Dumpling breast, fat legs, sausage hands,
serve and clear like automatons.
No smiles, no chat, no good wish,
Just bacon roly poly, meat pie or fish.
Then semolina, tapioca, rice – nice.
A church school dinner hall
Thankfulness and meekness all.
Washing up water, clattering shouts,
Tension is broken, kids fed, now let out.
Return passed the cross
Our souls are not lost,
but cared for by God and State,
Ever thankful for school dinners we ate.
BLYTHART
Ah – memories :) In the fifties, our little PM Church had buffet suppers after special concerts and we little kids feasted (okay – gorged ourselves) on home-made cakes and large sandwiches made with best quality ham, etc. Happy days :)
Linda Ridpath replied
tee hee!! this was a high church school, and we left the high stone walled playground every lunchtime to go about 100 yards along the road to the hall, which had a HUGE gorey figure of the crucifixition hanging over the door, totally inappropriate i thought!!!! and the meals were really yuuuky!!! thanks for the comment Dave x
Trenchtownrock
LOL..I am digging this piece..reminded when I was a child and the all day services then we would all march to the dining hall and ate with the altar and jesus looking down on us…good read and write.
Linda Ridpath replied
hey there! i know exactly what you mean, glad you are ‘diggin’ it – thanks for reading!!!
BLYTHART
I am a Christian, but even I sometimes feel we dwell too much on the crucifixion and not enough on the resurrection. So sorry the meals were yukky … maybe you should have changed to being Methodist – our church weekday meeting meals were really yummy, with each women’s group trying to out-do each other in the yumminess stakes :) I went to an Alpha course a few years ago at a Methodist church and there was a buffet supper. When the Alpha course was hosted by a Methodist church in the neighbouring town, their women’s group decided to steal the glory by providing us with a full dinner – three cheers for competitiveness I say – that’s why Methodists all look so well-fed :)
Linda Ridpath
ha ha!!!! as long there are some satisfied customers out there!!!! I suppose on reflection the school dinners i had at secondary school were not too bad….. I used to be a dinner lady, some years back, and the offering then was mostly beans, chips and burgers followed by something crunchy out of a vending machine, finished off with something fizzy out of another machine…. ho hum, we are never satisfied!!!