"O children all, be warned by me, That breakfast, dinner, lunch and tea, Are all the human frame requires!"


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Posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on February 16, 2008 at 21:12:14 from 195.93.21.34 user ACB.

In Reply to: Re: Dinner Time posted by Rob Marshall on February 16, 2008 at 12:44:53:

With that, the wretched child expires!

(H Belloc!)

This is a veritable social minefield.

And we have not even touched on "tiffin", yet!

Very tentatively, I suggest that children of the comfortable middle classes enjoyed (when not at school - at school they endured) the following repasts:

Breakfast, at around 8.00 a.m. This would generally involve something cooked.

Elevenses, at around 11.00 a.m. (this snack also turns up in Tolkien - predictably, the hobbits are keen on it!) This was typically a hot drink and a biscuit.

Dinner, at around 12.30 to 1.00 p.m. A serious meal, of two, even three, courses.

Tea, between 4.00 and 5.00 p.m. This may have been called "Nursery Tea" (I recall that expression being used by a visitor in 1960 - my parents thought it amusingly pretentious) or "High Tea" or just "Tea" but it was reasonably substantial - perhaps eggs, or sardines on toast, bread and butter, and probably a cake.

Bed time for children up to 13 would be between seven and nine, depending on age.

Small children were allowed downstairs to say goodnight after washing and getting into pyjamas and dressing gowns before their parents ate supper or dinner (see below)

When children got to the age when they might reasonably be expected to behave properly and to sustain a conversation, they were allowed to stay up and join the adults at supper (when the family were by themselves) or dinner (when guests were present, and a much more formal meal was involved. I suggest that this age was around 14 or 15, though my grandmother recalled being allowed downstairs to eat dinner in the evening at 13, when staying with relations in London to ensure that she and her sister would not grow up as "country bumpkins". That was in 1899. She was a Warwickshire farmer's daughter and her parents had "supper" at home, with the main meal being dinner at midday, unless they were entertaining.

Thus the distinction between lunch and dinner in the middle of the day was a fairly casual one, and depended on how old you were, where you were, and whether the family was entertaining.

Since parents and children on camping holidays would not entertain in the evenings, Ransome's characters have dinner at midday.

QED?


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