From Tuck Shop to Top Table

I was the most unremarkable of students. Distinctly average in the classroom, and distinctly awful on the playing fields, I slipped between the gaps, a ghost in the machine. I couldn’t paint a door, let alone a picture, while my musical skills would empty the room. In short, my Eton career was markedly inglorious; a drab thread in that most rich and venerable of tapestries. One thing I could do well, though, was eat. Not so much in my house, despite my housemaster being a noted gourmand. Nor even in the fast-food fleshpots of Windsor, where I once saw a friend eat his weight in the ‘All-You-Can-Eat-Tuesday’ Pizza Hut special. No, it was within the starkly utilitarian walls of Rowlands, the school tuck shop, with its worn lino floor, where I truly excelled.

Here – among the Milk Gums and Fizzy Cola Bottles, the pear drops, Wham Bars, Stingers, Black Jacks, candy cigarettes and Fruit Salads – I triumphed. Rowlands comprised two rooms; the main one, where one entered, had a gleaming, glass-fronted counter – a barrier between greedy boys and saintly staff. Behind it was classic confectionery: chocolate bars, Chewits, Fruit Pastilles and the like. On shelves lining the walls were rows of sweet-shop jars: Aniseed Twists, Acid Drops, Sherbet Lemons, Fizz Bombs, Pontefract Cake and Kola Kubes, all bought by the quarter, twisted neatly in a white paper bag.

Away from the sugary spectacle were two plastic banquettes where you could loiter with merry intent. This was priority seating, based on seniority and loyalty. The longer you spent here, the more right you had to sit down. I always had a seat.

To the right were two steps down into the back room where there was a racing game (was it OutRun?), and a television where, on Saturdays, we’d sit, glued to Baywatch. On the dot of 6pm, the whole school fell silent as 800 boys gazed, transfixed, at Pamela Anderson and Erica Eleniak bouncing down that beach.

Sweets and red swimsuits were just the start, though. Rowlands also offered Brown Cows – a block of vanilla ice cream plonked into a pint of Coke – and McCain Microwave Chips, which seemed at the very cutting edge of modern foodservice technology. The microwave burger was less satisfying – grim and stolid, with a squelch of plastic cheese and gritty meat. We loved it all the same.

Best of all, though, was the Rowlands bacon roll. Forget madeleines, dear reader, because this was the truly evocative taste of my youth, available for the briefest 15-minute window at Chambers, a morning break between the third and fourth lesson. I often ran from the other side of school to ensure I got my fix, where I’d join the scrum, pushing, ducking and diving my way to the front. Like the half-time bar at a football match, it was every man for himself and could get dirty, with shoves, screams, or even a fist fight. When we came within earshot, “Bacon with, please, Mrs Cripps” was the cri de guerre, meaning a bacon roll with ketchup, picked from a great pile in the metal warmer, and half-wrapped in a napkin. Sure, there were sausage sandwiches too, but crisp, smoked back bacon on a thickly buttered, slightly firm bun, was what mattered.