School Days - memories & outings

Tufty Fluffytail was a little boy squirrel who taught you how to cross the road. There was also his mum and various friends. You had to go to classes where it was taught and you got a badge, but I dont know where I went except it was somewhere in Coventry!

Hi Elaine Thank you for that. I did go to the Coventry Gaumont to watch Tufty the tufted duck film when I was knee high. A squirrel, hey! Thank you again, I have missed out see.

My favourite dinner was meat pie, you could never go and get seconds when that was the meal for the day, the worst dinner for me was liver it always looked green, ahh! and you could always go for 2nds and 3rd helpings (lol) but I must say I loved the puddings, well most of them, definitely not the stick to your rib rice pudding.

The women who worked in the kitchens in the schools I went to worked miracles with only a very small budget. I liked everything they cooked except the cheese pie which was always served on Fridays as they were catholic schools. Lemon-meringue pie with cream topping was my favourite. The dinner ladies even took the trouble to make it look attractive! One of my school-friend's mother was a dinner lady and she cooked everything as if it was for her own son.

Hi all Cheese or fish pie was a regular at the KHVIII on Fridays. Guess what, I liked that too. I could have had yours, Dutchman.

Like Sally I liked meat pie, still do. In fact I liked most dinners; the thing I couldn't stand was lumpy custard.

Unfortunately I never experienced the joy (?) of school dinners as we lived close to KHVIII so it was mum's cooking (!) for me

At my school you couldn't have a pudding if you didn't eat all your dinner so we used to sneak any vegetables we didn't like into our hankies to dispose of later! I loved nearly all puddings except Sago pudding mainly because everyone called it frogspawn.

Favourite was 2nds but 3rds were better, the only thing I did not like was when the lettuce would decide to go for a walk around the plate. lol, hated slugs!!

Same at my school, had to clear the plate or no pudding and yes it was the good old hankies that we used for disposal, I'm sure the dinner ladies turned a blind eye to our sneakiness.

I was in Gibson House at Woodlands School, and what I absolutely hated more than anything on this earth was the Tapioca Pudding - made so thick you could resurface the road with it I can distinctly remember the Housemaster; Mr Newton, standing in the centre of the house during lunch one day, steam almost coming from his ears - and informing us in no uncertain manner that "there would be NO CHIPS until further notice if we didn't stop leaving food on our plates! I can't remember how long the ban of chips lasted but he wasn't the sort of teacher to make idle threats!

I went to Keresley Newlands schools in the early 60's. We all hated stew which had swede in it-it was hard and tasteless but I think we passed on group hysteria about it! I loved the iced sponges with custard the same colour-yum!

My mum was also a school dinners cook and her food was fantastic (and yes, of course I am biased). She worked in a small country school kitchen on the outskirts of Worcester. Lemon meringue as detailed above was really nice but I remember a lattice flan with synthetic cream on top that I thought was the best ever. Late on when we moved to Coventry mum worked at Ernesford Grange Primary in Foxton Rd so the kids there would also have been well fed

Hi all Do any of you remember your first school reading books? My first school reading books were part of a series called 'The Beacon Reader' books. One of the strories in book three was called 'The Hobyars'. It was about people, some of who had one eye, two & three eyes. So as I venture out today, I think that I will be a 'Hobyar'. It sounds a good word, hey! ps. We could start our own rival to the secret seven or the famous five. 'The Hobyars'. What a pip!

My first reading series was Janet and John. I remember them well, each level had a different colour cover and I can remember striving to get to the red books because they were really hard!