A Tuesday Tale - learning to share

On hindsight, this isn't a tale that I'm very proud of having been involved in - but it was all part of learning to share, and the penalties if you didn't.

A few folk have asked if we had midnight feasts at boarding school - yup, we sure did! Although, with all the outdoor activities and fresh air it was often difficult to remain awake until 'the witching hour'! Electrical appliances in our rooms were on the 'banned' list - but that didn't stop us of course. There were a few travelling irons around plus totally exposed immersion heaters - lethal weapons - but it didn't stop us from trying to make toast by ironing bread snaffled from the dining room (it never worked so don't try it), as well as boiling up water and making up packet soups. In those days they needed a bit of a simmer and a few of us were almost branded when the soup was finally cooked and the 'chef' then charged down the corridor to into one of the wash rooms to plunge the red hot immersion heater into water to stop the veggie bits from sticking and burning! How the staff didn't smell what was going on I don't know!

Although midnight feasts were banned, we were allowed to take some 'tuck' with us at the start of a new term, at half term and sometimes if parents sent parcels from home. Generally there was a week or so's grace to share out your goodies  and, without question, we did share. The rule was that if, for example, you cut an apple up, everyone else got first pick of a wedge so that you didn't take the lion's share.

One particular pupil hadn't totally embraced this 'code of ethics' by any means. Happily taking our offerings but never seeming to have any of her own, we eventually realised that Pauline was 'squirelling' her tuck and quietly sneaking off for her own little 'sugar rush'.

This is the part that makes me feel uncomfortable. We were quite outraged by what we perceived to be greediness and being devious, then one girl eventually found Pauline's box of hidden chocolate bars and sweets underneath a folded pile of clothes in one of the wardrobes. When the coast was clear, a group of us carefully opened each and every chocolate bar and took a big bite out of it before carefully re-wrapping it and replacing the box where it was. At the time, we thought we were sending a clever message to her and of course to accuse any of us as being the perpetrators would mean owning up to hiding tuck away in the first place.

But now, I can't help but wonder why Pauline needed the security of her stash of her own chocolate bars hidden away from the rest of us girls - hopefully the experience didn't damage her for life :( She was a skinny little girl - for all I know she could be the size of a Sumo wrestler by now if she continued scoffing vast quantities of chocolate without sharing!


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