Meal Times in De Vitre Hall

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Record Number: 6.105

Record Type: Audio

Caption:

The photograph is of the hospital's dining room, De Vitre Hall, as it was in 2006 when students from St. Martin's College visited the site (now the Jamea Al Kauthar Islamic College).

In the photograph you are looking west towards the main doors leading on to the Main Corridor of the hospital. The entrance is almost exactly in the middle of the hospital at the point of division, up until the last years of the institution, between the male and female sides. At the time the former residents remember in the audio clip the men or boys would have come from the left, as we look, and women or girls from the right. You will see a balcony in the background, situated on the first floor which housed the rooms where members of the hospital's Central Committee would meet. When visiting, these individuals would be able to observe the residents from above, from a distance. (Record 6.112 has a staff memory of this occurence)

Summary:

They used to throw food at one another…’

Meal Times in De Vitre Hall

Former residents (Frank Cochrane, Harry Oldham, Peggy Palmer) remember the meals in De Vitre Hall at the Royal Albert in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. In this clip they refer specifically to the testing of food, the location of the dining hall, the throwing of food and how meal times were announced.

Harry: The Medical (Superintendant) came round, Doctor, Doctor I don’t know who it was, anyhow one of the Doctors, came into the dining hall to test the food, put the dinner spoon in the can of soup, just tasted it and spit it out again. Isn’t that right?
Frank: Yes.
Harry: He just spit it out again.
SC: What did he spit it into? Where did he spit it?
Harry: Oh anywhere. Just spit it out.
SC: And did he do this often Harry? Did the doctor, the medical person do this often?
Harry: … to taste it, to test it you see, see what it taste like. There were some give up.
NI: The doctor, the doctor came round every mealtime.
Frank: Yeah. Especially dinnertime and he’d get a spoon and taste it and go out on corridor –
NI: So that was every mealtime.
Frank: Every mealtime yes.
SC: So did you have one dining hall in those days…
Harry: One great big dining hall.…
SC: … Where was it in the hospital?
Peggy: On the main corridor.
Frank: On the Main Corridor… As you went through the Front Entrance and through the Fire Doors and it was facing you.
SC: Right that is what is now the De Vitre Centre isn’t it.… So how many people were eating there at any one time?
Harry: Quite a few.
Frank: There was boys and girls. Boys at one side and girls at the other side.
Peggy: Used to have big tables when I first come…
Frank: They used to throw food at one another…
Harry: There used to be a patient… used to come round and er you know with pot trolley, pots and one thing and another on. And what was left over, what we couldn’t eat, went over to girls’ side for them to eat, wasn’t it?
SC: Charming… Do you remember that Peg?
Peggy: … It was the 1950s when I first come. I was only fifteen.
SC: Were they still eating in the dining hall when you first came?
Peggy: Yeah… I did have my meals in there when I first come. I do remember we used to go down to it…
SC: … And how did they tell you it was dinner time? How did you know when it was dinner time?
Harry: They used to have a gong didn’t they?… To let us know when it was meal time didn’t they have a gong?
Frank: A gong. Yes.
Harry: A great big brass –
Frank: - Right on the basement…
Harry: gong… They used to bang on it. That’s how we knew.
NI: It was on the basement?
Frank: Yes. On the basement. You could hear it where-ever you were. Even if you was outside you could hear it. The lad that used to bang it he banged it that hard, you see…

Notes:

This audio clip (duration: 2' 54) was recorded on October 16th 1987 in a reminiscence group at the College of Adult Education, Lancaster. On the same occasion the memories, also relating to meal times in De Vitre Hall, presented in Records 6.106 and 6.107 were recorded.

Keywords:

1930s 1940s 1950s Boys Girls Men Women Food Work

De Vitre Hall Photograph St Martins Students Photograph Project Process Photograph