Meal Times in De Vitre Hall

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Record Number: 6.106

Record Type: Audio

Caption:

This photograph of De Vitre Hall was taken in February 2006 on a visit by nursing students at St. Martin's College, Lancaster. We are looking eastwards towards the kitchens - the opposite direction to the view in Record 6.105, taken on the same visit. However the photograph is a similar perspective to that in Record 6.107 which was taken probably at least 100 years earlier.

Summary:

‘We used to get blackclock soup!’

Food at Meal Times in De Vitre Hall

Frank Cochrane and Harry Oldham, former residents, remember the sort of food they ate in De Vitre Hall at the Royal Albert in the 1930s and 40s.

SC: What was the food like in those days?
Frank: Oh terrible.
SC: Can you tell what kind of food you used to eat at meals?… What did you used to eat for dinner?
Frank: We used to get blackclock soup!
SC: What’s blackclock soup?
Frank: Didn’t we Harry?
Harry: That’s right blackclocks in soup.
Frank: In soup -
NI: Blackclocks?
Frank: - floating on top.
NI: what are blackclocks?
Frank: Beetles!
SC: You mean real beetles in the soup?
Frank: (Laughs)
SC: Seriously Frank or are you pulling… ?
Frank: We never touched it!
NI: That used to happen… ?
Frank: Oh yes! I always the doctor comin’ round and – he came round and he said, ‘What’s the matter, you’re not eating your … soup?’ And they all turned round and said, ‘there’s a lot of blackclocks in.’ And so he turned round and said, ‘Don’t tell them all they’ll all want a taste.’ (Laughs)
SC: So apart from soup with beetles in it, what else did you get?… Was there anything you liked?
Harry: Nothing was no better than any other… It all seemed to be alright.
SC: What about Sundays? Was the food any different on Sundays than the rest of the week?
Harry: No -
Frank: No
Harry: - We still used to get same stuff. Still used to get same –
Frank: Just the same…The only difference we’d get Yorkshire Pudding… Every Sunday. And they used to call it telegraph wires. Stretching (Laughs)
Harry: Old Albert Connor were best wasn’t he? Rice pudding. (Laughs)
Frank: Aye.
Harry: …Threw a plate of rice pudding up against wall. He was put to Welch Home for punishment for about five or six month for it.
SC: What happened to him?
Harry: Er dish of rice pudding. He threw it up against wall.
SC: And so what was the punishment?…
Harry: He got put to Welch Home for about five pr six month…
NI: you were saying that people used to throw food (at each other) What happened to those people who threw food?
Frank: Oh they’d get in trouble.
Harry: Aye he just threw it up against wall, thought no more about it. (Laughs)
NI: What, what would happen to them?
Frank: They’d get a clout.
NI: They’d get a clout. Did anything else happen to them?
Frank: Yes. Be put on scrubbing or – for a few weeks.
NI: Was that scrubbing the front steps?
Frank: All round the main corridors and places, on your hands and knees. No machines like they is now.

Notes:

This audio clip (duration: 3' 17) 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 6.105 and 6.107 were recorded.

Keywords:

1930s 1930s Men Boys Resistance Punishment Food

De Vitre Hall Photograph St Martins Students Photograph Project Process Photograph