dinners
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I loathed school dinners. All that regimented lining up to be served and a stroppy headteacher forcing us to 'clear our plates'. I could cheerfully sit there and not eat at all if it was something horrible. He hated that act of 'unreasonable defiance'.
Sometimes he would sit at the table with us, 'gracing us with his presence', and noisily tuck away a heaped plate of food to 'prove there's nothing wrong with it.'
By Junior school I'd become 'a sandwich', which meant I could sit at the short table with the other half a dozen misfits who got fed properly at home in the evening. The compliant little sheep swilling at the communal trough felt sorry for us, assuming our parents couldn't afford five shillings a week for 'dinner money' but were too proud to admit it. This may have been true for a some of them, looking back. The ones who lived in posh houses with carpet downstairs, but bare boards and army surplus coats upstairs where guests rarely went.
I was perfectly happy eating cheese or marmite sandwiches every day, sometimes Mum combined the two fillings. I still do occasionally ;-) Sometimes the others would get bored and trade sarnies. I never did, although I'd sometimes try different things if one of the others wasn't really hungry and offered a spare sandwich around.
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