Gentle Customs

I spent a lot of my growing up years in England and so was fortunate to be able to drink in some wonderful English customs.  Every country has its individual, enchanting customs and England is no different.  One of these customs is that a lot of children in England go “away” to school – in other words, they go to a boarding school.  In the United States, it is not a common practice for people to go to boarding school but, in England, it is.

I had been so excited when I was told that we were moving to London from New York and that I would be going to a boarding school, in the country, with some friends whom I had known in Hong Kong.  I must say, I had a rude awakening when I had to kiss my mother good-bye and then watch her pull out of the long driveway at school.  She was heading back to New York on a flight the next day.  Up until we drove to school that day, we had spent a frenzied week at Peter Jones getting uniforms, bedding and everything else a young lady needs to take with her to boarding school.  Name tags had to be sewn onto everything so that my belongings were duly marked.  We had been so busy that I had had little time to think about the ramifications of my mother leaving me!

Darling mother and I had flown over to England to get me all ready for school and then she was flying back to the States to supervise packing everything up.  She and my father would then be sailing on the Queen Elizabeth over to England six weeks later.  Well, from when she left the school that day until I heard her voice on the phone seven weeks later, I cried.  I cried so much that the Headmistress often had to take me into her Living Room after “lights out” as I was keeping the other girls in the dormitory awake.  She would give me a cup of tea and a biscuit (cookie) to calm me down and then send me back to my dormitory.  After all, a good “cuppa” solves everything, doesn’t it?  It was a difficult time, as you can imagine, but once my parents arrived in England and were an hour away on the train, I was fine and, have to admit that boarding school was the best thing.  I learned a lot – a lot, a lot!

At boarding school, every afternoon at 4:00 pm, the gong would sound and we uniform-clad school girls would walk, not run, to the Dining Room.  Running in the corridors was forbidden.  Upon arriving at the Dining Room, we would stand behind our chairs until Grace was said by a teacher, and then we would sit down and enjoy our “tea”.  By “tea” was meant a small meal, really.  Toast and jam was served and a cake of some sort with, of course, tea to drink.  Tea was one of the four repasts of the day and totally expected and enjoyed!

On Sundays, we would have “high tea”.  This was a larger meal with salad and cold meats added to the menu and was also the last meal of the day.  The gong on Sundays was sounded at around 5:30.

After I had finished at school, I would often find myself at friends’ country houses where tea was a huge thing on Saturdays and Sundays.   Depending on the family, everyone would round themselves up in the Drawing Room (Living Room) or Dining Room and tea would be rolled in on a trolley which was laden down with scrumptious tea time treats.  Warm crumpets with lots of butter were a favorite of mine.  Scones were usually served with cream and jam, sandwiches, tarts, cakes of all kinds – a lovely fare – a positively lovely fare!

Yes, tea is a most civilized pastime ~ a charming way to spend an hour or two!