Canteen Days

“Canteen” | a place in a factory, office, etc. where food and meals are sold, often at a lower than usual price.[Cambridge English Dictionary]

“Craic” | (Irish English) enjoyable time spent with other people, especially when the conversation is entertaining and funny [Cambridge English Dictionary]

 

I hear some people are finding it hard to stay at home and shun human contact during this Covid-19 crisis. Understandable, especially if their regular lifestyle involves daily socialising. But I am experiencing an unexpected bonus. Ever since I stopped going to work I have found it increasingly difficult to find the time to keep up with this blog; suddenly I have no excuse but to knuckle down and resume normal service. Thanks pandemic, for the first time in ages I have time on my hands.

I am fascinated with communal eating, and it’s ironically apt at the moment, when eating out is banned until further notice, by edict of BoJo. In particular, canteens are a thread which runs through much of my life, from school dinners to university refectories, via worker’s canteens, in the UK and overseas.

Even without the virus crisis I just miss the canteen experience these days, as a social diversion, a welcome pause in the working day. Looking back, there have been periods when no canteen was available on a daily basis, such as when I went freelance after leaving the BBC in 1983. At such times, the lack of a canteen was a minor disappointment, something missing in the working day.

Of course, it’s not just about the food, but the craic as well. Actually, like Commisario Montalbano I am rubbish at eating and talking simultaneously, so it’s eat-first-chat-second for me if I have a choice, but for sure there’s not much to be said for eating alone. .                

Me and my Puch

I don’t know what became of my bike, but by the time I was in my second year at University in Leicester (1964), I had got it into my head that what I needed was a scooter. Unfortunately I couldn’t afford a Vespa or a Lambretta, the iconic machines beloved of the Mods, so I shopped around for something cheaper, and what I came up with was something called a Puch.

A what? Well, it looked bit like a Lambretta, but it was made by the Austrian Steyer-Daimler-Puch company. Perhaps I was impressed by the Daimler bit, and it seemed then like a trusty steed, suitable for local and long distance travel. Little did I know.

My cunning plan was to ride the scooter up to Leicester, where I was studying for a degree in French and Philosophy. London NW9 to Leicester is about 100 miles, so this was the first long haul test. The  Puch was fine, but I soon found out that journeys longer than a few miles were a severe test of human stamina, for which I was simply not prepared.