The Ient Family: Family History

Rugby & High Tea

I was interested in playing rugby; I played for Sunderland Boys. We got into a final at Ashbrook and we won that match. We played a team from Hartley Boys, I remember, and this was the first time our club had won the cup for 20 odd years and we were all quite pleased. We were all invited to a high tea afterwards and there was a marvellous array of knives and forks and spoons and none of us could understand which one to use first because we’d had no particular training about this! This was the first time I’d seen butter in rolls. We were used to margarine out of the paper!

Knives & Forks

The other experience I had was a friend of mine, his father was the chef for the Masonic Temple. This was a Masonic lodge near the old Central Park where the school is, now that was an open space in my day. My friend was having a birthday treat from his father, the chef. He’d mentioned to his father that I was left handed. We got to this function and there was this marvellous array of food laid out with all the utensils, the knives and forks. I thought, well I shouldn’t be worried about this, I’ll just watch and do what other people do. Unfortunately by virtue of his son telling his dad I was left handed, he’d moved all the knives and forks over to the opposite side, therefore I was in a bit of a quandary as to which knife and fork and spoon to use!


NEXT

---