Skipping to School by Doris Calder

Author:Doris Calder
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780750953078
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2013-08-12T04:00:00+00:00

Puddings varied from day to day, according to what fruit was available at the greengrocers.

On Saturday afternoons, my mother, my sister and I would go shopping and my father would go for a drink with his friends. The hotpot could be eaten whenever we were ready to dip into it. Puddings were usually apple pie, stewed fruit, apple crumble or a fruit cobbler. There were many other dishes but these were the staples.

A teatime treat on a Saturday was a box of cakes from Cooper’s, a shop which sold the most delicious Rum Babas, Cream Pyramids, Cream Slices, Cream Horns and my favourite – large meringues. We occasionally had some of these on a weekday if my mother had not had time to bake.

Only two types of coffee were available: Camp coffee and ground coffee. Instant coffee was not yet available. Camp coffee was sold in tall thin bottles, like sauce bottles, and it looked and tasted like treacle. It had a very distinctive label; an Indian soldier wearing a multi-coloured turban, standing in front of a seated soldier in a Scot’s uniform, holding out a tray on which there was a bottle of coffee. On this bottle was a picture of an Indian soldier holding a tray with a bottle of coffee, on which there was a picture of an Indian … I remember looking at this bottle and thinking ‘This could go on forever!’

Cooper’s sold many varieties of ground coffee. In the side window of the shop, a man dressed in a white uniform with a tall white hat worked the machines which roasted and ground the coffee beans. The tantalising whiffs of coffee outside drew you into the shop, and once inside your nostrils were assailed with the smell of roasting coffee.

At home, my mother prepared coffee in a large blue and white willow patterned jug. Once the coffee and hot water were in, the jug was covered with a circle of fine mesh cloth which had heavy china beads sewn around the edge, this served as a strainer for the coffee, and I still have one as a keepsake. Cooper’s was a large city centre grocer’s shop which sold some very unusual and exotic foods, with a section of foods for the Chinese community and another section set aside for Kosher foods to cater for the Jewish community.

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