I taught them to cook vidya4 - Flipbook - Page 6
4
Autumn Term
London 1970s
London in the seventies buzzes with energy and there’s a frenzy
of things to do – wine bars, cheap eating places, art galleries,
new musicals and so many theatres. Friends who’ve arrived in
the city have found plenty of job choices, bargain priced flats and
they are ready to party. For the past few weeks I’ve been sharing
a flat with Mark, my boyfriend. It’s a secret from both sets of
parents who might not approve of such goings on before marriage
as it is known as living in sin. We’re not telling them so they
won’t know.
My new job as head of home economics is working in a
bustling east London comprehensive. Each teaching day I speed
out of Hampstead in my ancient Mini Traveller past the halal
butchers, Cypriot groceries and Afro Caribbean vegetable stalls
and into the suburbs. My new school is in a residential area
surrounded by neat streets of Victorian and 1930s terraced
houses occupied by white, British working class families who
have lived in the area for several generations. Mothers, fathers,
aunts and uncles of my students have been to this school, and
not much has changed since. The huge factory making ping
pong balls and plastic goods is a major employer and many men
journey to the east end of London for well paid jobs in the docks
and print works. Local shops stock traditional British foods
and the early evening hot meal of meat and two veg or a Fray
Bentos steak and kidney pie sums it up. I must tread softly and
not bring too many of my fancy modern ideas crashing into the
classroom.
The real culture shock is what I have to teach. To get them
through their cookery exam my teenagers must learn how to make
a vast range of high fat, high sugar recipes – pastries, biscuits,
cakes and sauces. We’ll use as much margarine and lard as I can
keep in my gas-fired fridge, and as many packets of Tate and Lyle
sugar that can be piled into my food storeroom. Bugger healthy