Terry Carey
"Empiricist"
Membership Level: Full
Posts: 7777
Status: Offline | Times Past
Reading some of these posts brings back lots of memories not least about gas lamps, staying out all day etc.
There’s one day in my life which, when I think about it, indicates that I must have had a better fed childhood than some others. Not that I always was able to leave the table without feeling that I could have eaten more. That happened plenty of times.
The day in question is my first day in the army when we went for our first meal which happened to be dinner. We were served the usual meat, potatoes plus two other vegetables though I don’t recall exactly what they were.
Several things amazed me - like how far elbows could reach having been taught to keep mine in while eating. Another was the incredible noise and the third was how quickly the food was being consumed.
It wasn’t long before I was asked for my piece of meat and when I showed surprise the lad said that I mustn’t want it because I hadn’t eaten it. Then I saw that everyone else had eaten theirs first while I was cutting mine into bits as I went along.
It appeared that some had seldom seen meat and one of my new colleagues said if he didn’t eat it as soon as it was on his plate his brothers and sisters would soon scoff it. That was surprising but when I queried it he said he’d got the marks to prove it.
Then he showed me the backs of his hands and, believe this or not, he had several sets of tiny scars in fours on the backs of both his hands where his siblings had been stabbing down with their forks to steal his meat.
That day was a real eye opener in more ways than one but in those days there was certainly a lot of real poverty so I guess my early life wasn’t too bad in comparison with many others.
TC. |
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