Whatever happened to the tea-time of my childhood? For my brothers and me, It was the greatest time of the day. In those civilised schooldays,dinner-time’ (no fancy ‘lunch’ for us working-class Northerners) lasted two hours, so school didn’t finish until 4-4.30, when we rushed home, ravenous, for tea. at 5. With seven children, a bus-driver’s wage didn’t allow for anything fancy for tea during the week, just lots of bread-and-butter and jam. My poor mother was hardly back to the bread-board before the first plateful had vanished and my greedy brothers were calling for more. And it was always butter – my mother would have no truck with margarine, ‘maggie-ann’ in the
Merseyside vernacular. We would have had no difficulty in telling Stork from butter!
Sunday tea-time was very different, the highlight of the week. Unusually for that era, my father did the baking on Sunday, producing buns, sandwich cake and our favourites, Cocoa Krispies, made with Rice Krispies, cocoa, sugar and butter. First though, we had tinned fruit and ‘evap.’ – called ‘cream’ by pretentious neighbours. I loved fruit and evap.(and still do) but for some strange disciplinary reason, bread-and-butter had to be eaten with it, spoiling the effect for me. and I have never combined them since.
Returning home very late one day, I explained to my distraught parents
that I’d had to take shelter from an escaped tiger near Tranmere Rovers
football ground (true, strange as it may seem) My younger brothers were totally unimpressed by this thrilling saga but their envy was loudly proclaimed by my account of the tea that I’d had earlier, at an affluent school-friend’s before my adventure.
“Cor, chocolate biscuits! And a whole glassful of milk! It’s not fair, our Nance gets all the treats,just because she’s the only girl!”
The most delicious tea-times I remember were at Castle Cliffe in Hereford, once the Bridewell. If Con, the owner, befriended you, tea-time was a standing invitation – and what a tea! That archetypal English delicacy, cucumber sandwiches, or perhaps thin bread-and-butter and home-made jam, followed by scones with jam and cream, gingerbread, Victoria sponge and the richest of chocolate cakes. The tea,of course, was Earl Grey in delicate china teacups. This, plus Con’s gentle conversation, against a view of the river through wide windows, glows in my memory as the perfect tea-time.
So what has happened to tea-time? For many children, it seems to be a
packet-snack or two, just a stop-gap between school and supper on a tray in front of the television. What a delight they are missing!