Thursday 10 December 2009

The last days of the dining room.

..... or how I learned to love the sound of demolition equipment. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Here we are in the Steyning Grammar School dining room for our last meal.

Richard Beels has the honour of reading the last "Names" to check that no-one has escaped. ("Names" is one of those old words that has survived through the years. It's clearly about calling a register. Now "Slogs" is an entirely different matter. It's food after school... mostly things left over from main school dinner. Rumour has it that it's an acronym "Supper's Left Over's Grilled". But that's by no means certain.)



Sue Weekes gets to do the last notices in the old building.








Catering manager Trevor is last to leave... Captain, sinking ship and all that.












And here's the room empty prior to demolition.











First of all it was necessary to trim down the old (and I mean OLD!) Mulberry tree so that the site hoardings could go up. (The dining room is in the background.) You can see some of the age on the younger cut branch below.

Later on the remaining tree will be transplanted to behind Bennetts building in the hope that it will survive and thrive there. This tree has produced huge amounts of mulberries in the past... and I like mulberry crumble.





"Demolition begins" follows.... almost at once!



Tim.

1 comment:

  1. Hmmm....slogs, certainly up until my release from a seven year stretch in Mr. Websters custody, were nothing more (or less!) than a halved slice of cheap white bread, thinly coated with cheap white margerine. These were distributed by the fearsome Mrs. Mitchell and her dour platoon of cooks, on plates stacked 10 or 12 pairs of slogs high, at breakfast and tea. Jam/marmalade was applied to slog as required at point of consumption. The rapidly-emptied plate could, amazingly, be returned for unlimited replenishment, until all boy's hunger was satisfied.
    A Bennetts Dormitory 8 resident of Sept 1969.

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