Pilgrims Way: more prefab memories

From Janet and Jim Chignall, who used to live in the prefab behind us on the Pilgrims Way prefab estate after the war:

A few recollections and short stories of early childhood life and times in our prefab, 31 Pilgrims Way, Wembley. Middlesex

  

I remember …… 

• Sitting on the front doorstep looking at my favourite comics, The Dandy & The Beano.
• Worrying all night about my younger brother (Jamie) starting school – Fryent’s Infants.
• Going to Fryent School on the coach which stopped by the ‘Green Thing’ outside our prefab.
• Taking small bunches of flowers, picked by Dad from our front garden for the school-teacher
• Mum making a soft football from old socks for Jamie to take to school, often after a last- minute request from him – just before we were due to leave!
• Watching my favourite programmes on our small 9 inch, Pye television. The Flowerpot Men,

Andy Pandy, Sooty and Muffin the Mule –  (I remember crying when Annette Mills, the Muffin the Mule presenter died in 1955).                  

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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. .                

Fryent days

Do you remember your first day at school? I do, or at least I think I do.

Here is what I think I remember:

I am sitting at a desk in a room with a lot of other kids, many of whom are crying, and I am wondering why they are upset. The room has a blackboard at the front and the walls are decorated with brightly coloured pictures. Out of the windows I see a field, with houses in the distance. On each desk is a slate, in a wooden frame, with a kind of pencil made of stone or something. Some kids seem to know what these are for, and are using the strange pencils to scribble on the slates.

A nice lady stands at the front and is talking to us and showing us how  to draw on the slates. Pretty soon I notice that one boy is hiding his slate as he scratches away, occasionally looking round to see if we are watching him. Then he stops and holds up his slate, saying something like “See, I can do real writing. If you can’t do real writing you’d better learn fast or you’ll get the cane.” I am not convinced. After all, I have seen the real thing, and he’s an idiot anyway who I recognise from the prefab estate.