The Wellesley day began with the galley staff being rousted out of the bunk by the nightwatch [generally a civvie-Potter held that post for part of my term] and you'd stumble down barely half awake to the dark and medieval place that food preparation was undertaken.

The entire school was run from a central steam plant...the galley included...the deck of which was constantly awash with drips, dribbles and escaping steam that sluiced across its surface, to be forever squeegeed into the scupper that ringed its perimeter. The items from which the steam issued were a pair of huge cauldrons [reminiscent of the ones featured in Fairy Story books in which children are boiled alive] and a bank of autoclaves.

The cauldrons served to cook most everything that ran the gamut from liquid to slurry...tea,skilley [porridge] custards and soups...while the autoclaves produced spuds, greens and encased in long aluminum pans an unending variety of steamed rolls that varied by only a single ingredient...raisins[spotted dick]... cocoa...chocolate roll...marmalade...jam...ginger...treacle...Rogers syrup and most anything else that came to hand or mind. These would be further disguised by a smothering of 'custard'...an item seemingly with- out substance other than corn starch and food colouring but an obsession of the British.

Complimentary to the size of the steam units, in the centre of the galley was a huge, blackened gas stove and grill, the range on top of which typically for breakfast was prepared scrambled eggs from powder [reputed to be W.W.2 vintage...with no argument from me] or welsh rarebit...which differed from the latter only by the addition of grated hard cheese rinds; while below in the oven, rarely, a roast would be cooked...'tho generally something leaning more to shepherds pie would materialise...the meat portion of which would have been stretched to its ultimate and beyond by the addition of oatmeal and oxo.

Saltpetre was reputed to have seasoned the fare to cool youthful ardour...of this I had no knowledge and were it the case, can guarantee, it didn't work for me. Further to the main kitchen items was the big Hobart blender in which we mixed pastries, mashed spuds and the like...and the ominous Bendix potato peeler that could reduce a two pounder to Parisien in a blink or a foot long carrot to Julien, depending on the foulness of the operators mood.

If scrambled eggs were indeed the order of the day, then the deep fryers were fired up and thick slabs of bread were fried [holy cholestrol] to a golden brown over which then would be slathered the half fluid egg...Yum! The overall ambience in the early morn of stale steam, half rancid fat and the ever pervasive smell of half rotted potatoes was only for the strongest of stomaches...otherwise it was enough to gag a maggot. By the time Reveille had sounded up on Divisions, all traces of sleep had long departed from the galley staff and breakfast prep was fully under way.

Meals tended to shear away from protein, leaning heavily on carbohydrates. What were considered wholesome meals in those days would give a present day nutrionist apolexy. Breakfasts followed fairly predictable lines, including cold stewed tomatoes,cornflakes, puffed wheat, rice crispies, eggs...occassionally boiled but more generally the scrambled mode, toast and the odd dollop of jam or marmalade...washed by tea or on Sundays coffee...a brew that never saw the south side of the equator.

With the advent of 'Uncle' Bertie Gough, the catering officer to Wellesley, the menus were posted...but as in most things, what was plastered on the wall seemed a far cry to what was ladled on the plate.

It was my understanding that Wellesley wasn't fully funded by the Home Office [how I pick up these tidbits, or worse, why I hang onto them for forty odd years, I don't know...but crammed in amongst some very useful items is tons of this more or less useless trivia]...but finances were always thin...additional to this was predation by at least one of the cooks [who was fired] and one of the officers [who wasn't]...then deduct the 'choice bits' snatched away by some of the P.O.s and the 'bully boys' and it's amazing that some of the more vulnerable kids survived at all...it's well to note, size wasn't necessarily a determining factor...the smallest boy of my time, almost a mascot, was never touched, while one of the biggest, both of Hawkins, was under constant torment...which included being knocked unconscious by the gloved fist of P.O. Abrahams almost nightly!!

Once breakfast was served [and very much depending on the Officer of the watch] there was some slack time for those who'd been called early and I'd occassionally slip across the 'hedge' and walk my girl part way to school. It was one of these times I penetrated further into the town than usual...seldom ever leaving the scrub area behind the 'Terriers' camp in daylight...but coming back I ran across one of those electric vehicles unattended [I think they called them 'floats'] that delivered milk and eggs and such...milkman gone acalling?...and I made off with it driving it into the fields back of the school.

I doubt that I had any real plan in mind...eggs being impractical to move and milk churns just too damn heavy...but what was there were two huge slabs of bacon, some- thing we rarely if ever saw...and these I made off with, stashing them on the Wellesley hedge line before sliding back to my routine.

That afternoon I remember the police being at the school but don't believe anyone was ever actually questioned over it...it was almost too improbable. That night, with the help of one of my whackers [Worralls face comes to mind...but don't hold me to that, although he was crazier even than I was] we retrieved the slabs and by morning they were down at the galley.

The bread for the school came unsliced from the town bakery and the slicing detail was done in a seperate room adjacent to the galley and it was this electric slicer that I used to do the bacon on...it made a hell of a mess, that took longer to clean up than slice up.

It must have been the following day that I cooked the bacon in the big gas fired ovens and carried triumphantly into the mess hall...what- ever might have come off this, at that moment I couldn't have give a damn...but it just so happened that Janaway was one of the Officers of the mess and out of a lifetime of mischief this one item stands out... his neck stiffened...his nose went up in the air, then his eyes ran down the line of servers until they locked onto mine.

I know by this time that I was shaking...I figured for once I'd gone too far; but without ever taking his eyes off me...and this is why I loved the man...he picked up a plate, joined the line, received a portion of rations, came abreast of me, received a helping of bacon...not a word spoken...just that incredible twinkle of his eyes...maybe an imperceptible nod of the head and then he went and sat...not at the Officers table, but with the boys at one of the Division tables. Nothing was ever said about this...not a hint...not an allusion. I believe that unless I pressed things too far and became too ridiculous, which I've been known to do on occassion...many, many of the things I did at Wellesley were simply overlooked. If they were merely outrageous and not malicious you were given lots of range.