Dinner?

[chezzachez.livejournal.com]

Just reread Peter's Room for the first time in years and years. One of my faves. But one thing that I've never noticed before is that they consistently talk about dinner as being the meal in the middle of the day. In the north of England where I live this is a very working-class usage; middle class would be lunch, with the evening meal being dinner if formal and tea if not. Posh would be lunch and supper. Any views?

Comments

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

At the age they are in that book, it does seem odd - much younger children might do it, if they aren't old enough for evening dinner. Perhaps it's because they are country people, so live a farming routine and farmworker vocabulary?

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

I think it's both - they may be teenager but aren't adults, so given the era of the teenager hasn't really begun in Forestland until Thuggery Affair, they're still regarded as children, with exceptions for events like the Merrick's New Year's ball.

But also it's a farming community where people are used to having high tea and maybe a supper after; as lunch is the main meal of the day, it's called dinner (as for school dinners). The words didn't strike me as odd for what they are doing, but the mealtimes did a bit.

Middle class usages tend to be urban; rural upper and working habits and words tend to be more similar to each other than urban ones.

[nzraya.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this. I was also thinking that "lunch" tends to be of the "cold collation" variety (I think maybe they get "lunch" on game days/when they're at other schools playing away matches) whereas "dinner" is a cooked meal. It would be perfectly normal for "dinner" to be served in the middle of the day, especially as the help doesn't live in, and generally schools did (and do?) serve a midday "dinner" which is cooked.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

It has also interests me that they don't feed the workers at "dinner" time. Most of the owner farmers I knew in the 1950s would have done that - the workers would have brought their "lunch"/elevenses, had "dinner" with the owner, and then they'd have gone home for tea/supper. Perhaps this is because the owner is absent. It might also be because the author didn't know much about farming communities. Someone who knew her once told me that the author got everything out of books - "she wasn't hands-on".

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

If a worker had a tied cottage on the estate as Mr Tranter did they would go to their own cottage for dinner. The other workers probably had their own routine because there hadn't been an owner-farmer on the estate for years to have them all in for dinner, and Rowan is still learning the ropes.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

Indeed - that's why I suggested that it might be because the owner is absent - but didn't cousin Jon live on the estate?

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

My grandfather was a farmer in southern England from 1920 to 1970 and my grandmother carried on the same meals system after he died and my father took over. We had breakfast - dinner - tea - supper. The 1.30 meal was the main meal of the day, tea was bread and butter and cake, and supper soup or bacon and eggs once the work was done.

One farm labourer went home for lunch (as I'd assume Mr Tranter does) and the other ate sandwiches in the barn except when working late during harvest, when they either came in for tea and cake or had it taken out to them in the fields.

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

We never fed any of our farm labourers and I was surprised when I first visited the Swan Whisperer's family to find that they did!

[(Anonymous)]

I was brought up on a farm in Gloucestershire in 1940s/50s. Dinner was at one o'clock when my father came in - we had tea about 5 o'clock, and depending what we had for tea, we had supper later. If we'd had a bread and butter and cake tea it would be cooked supper - probably something on toast - and if we'd had more of a high tea it would be cocoa and biscuits, or possibly slice of cake. We didn't feed our workers - they either went home or brought sandwiches, only exception would be haymaking time when we'd take the haymakers tea down in the fields. Antonia Forest's mealtimes sounded exactly right to me.

[(Anonymous)]

I've just re-read RAH, and in it, there's a discussion between Nicola and Mrs Bertie, when Nicola tells her she's not going to be in for tea again, and Mrs Bertie says that she's not home that often for her mid-day dinner either. Mrs Bertie suggests that when Mrs Marlow returns from Paris, they should perhaps discuss whether to move dinner to the evening now that all the children are older and out and about more. So perhaps at least part of it is to do with age and when Mrs Bertie is there, etc. They always seem to get loads for elevenses too, which is probably typical for people working on the farm, then dinner, then afternoon tea, then some light thing for supper.

[(Anonymous)]

If I hadn't been living in the UK when I first read these books and attended a girls day school (a bit like Kingscote but no boarders) with a cooked school dinner, then I would have been a bit confused. You see, in Australia, where I'm from, the word for the evening meal can either be "dinner" or "tea". But then morning and afternoon tea are tea too. Lunch is lunch, whether it's hot or not. Tea is more of a word used in the family home I guess. My mum would still say "what's for tea?" - meaning the main meal. But she would refer to "going out to dinner" or "it's dinnertime". Supper is only something that you get when you go to a recital or church etc and consists of coffee/tea and maybe cake and sandwiches.

I must admit that as a kid from Australia the whole school dinner - with dessert - in the middle of the day was quite odd. Especially when you were used to taking a packed lunch.