May 2020 – Kitty's Blog

Serious Sunday: How the other half live!

Before Lockdown it was estimated that 4.5 million children in the UK were living below the poverty line. That number is set to grow by at least one million during 2020.

What does this mean in real terms? Well for some of my learners it means having only one set of clothes to wear. A set of clothes that is often still damp from having been washed the night before and, over time, begins to give off a musty, mouldy smell that sets apart the wearer in every sense of the word.

For other learners it is going without regular meals so that younger siblings can be fed. Such learners can apply for a means-tested free meal allowance using a thumb-print payment method. Every individual human thumb-print is unique but as a collective, in this instance, they mark off individuals as living in poverty.

What has really struck me whilst teaching during Lockdown is that it is a poverty of opportunity that is having and will continue to have, the most negative impact on the futures of those caught in the poverty trap.

A system is in place to monitor engagement with remote learning. For my particular group of learners engagement has been, for the most part, hit and miss.

Were they less inclined to engage with remote teaching and, if so, why? They were usually good attenders, maintained focus in class and responded positively to learning opportunities. They are very tech-savvy and had no problem interacting with virtual learning platforms when in college.

What was going on with these guys that was causing them to drop off the college radar?

I finally got to speak to one parent who explained that she had four children all trying to access school and college work from one laptop that she had borrowed from someone.

Another mum told me that they do not have access to WiFi and are using up data allowance on their phones to try to get the children’s school and college work done.

Yet another mum spoke to me in whispers down the phone. She didn’t want her daughters to know that their violent father, who mum has a restraining order against, had forced his way into the house and smashed up the one tablet they had because he thought mum was using it to visit dating sites.

Any learner without access to ICT equipment and/or WiFi can request to borrow a laptop and dongle. Unfortunately some will not receive these until early June when the academic year is nearly at an end.

There are other solutions. I have mailed work to some of my learners but due to cost and safeguarding constraints, they have no way of returning it once completed.

If a learner is able to submit electronic versions of their assignments I can mark these electronically, give constructive feedback, track progress and ensure that learning is sequenced and structured just as I would in a classroom.

Learners who are receiving work through the mail are excluded from this essential element of the learning process and are, as a result, at a disadvantage compared to their peers. How do they know what they have done well? How do they know what they need to do to improve? How do they recognise opportunities to push through barriers so that learning does not plateau?

Add to all this the compound loss of routine, interaction with peers within the virtual classroom and meaningful contact with teaching and support staff.

“How the other half live!” I once wrote this as a rather flippant comment on a report for a learner who, when asked why he was late back to class in the afternoon said “Well I went to Wetherspoon’s for a bit of lunch.”

Lockdown, remote teaching, difficult conversations with parents have truly shone a light on how the other half live.

What I did today: Ladybird Days

The other day I bought a watering can. I went with the intention of buying a large plastic one that would water all the pots in one go. Instead I ended up with a little galvanised can, painted green, which was half the size and twice the price of the one I had intended buying. Why? Well it reminded me of the illustrations in the vintage Ladybird books that were given to my son when he was a little boy.

The books are long gone but looking online I found hundreds of examples of illustrations from Ladybird books including one of a little girl following her mum round the garden with a watering can just like mine!

There were other illustrations of children, free from adult supervision, roaming through woods and camping out. One little boy is attempting to kindle a fire using a magnifying glass so that his sister can fry a pan of sausages. Another boy is using a knife to whittle a toy plane out of a piece of wood.

It seems unimaginable today that we would allow our children such freedom or exposure to danger.

When we, myself, my brother and our friends, were children we spent the long summer holidays outdoors from morning till dusk. There never seemed to be any adults around and we were never bored.

The estate we grew up on was newly built, surrounded by fields, farms and little country lanes that always led to somewhere interesting. At the top end was a field that had been used by the builders to dump excavated stones and excess building sand. This dump was, to us, a magical place. We called it The Desert and spent sunny evenings playing in the sand dunes. One summer there was a rumour that a “pervert” had been seen hiding in the dunes watching children as they played. No one stopped us from going there. My friend’s mum just said “Make sure you take next-door’s dog with you!” We never did see the pervert.

Another summer we had a craze for building bogie-carts out of old pram wheels and bits of wood. The steering mechanism was made from a piece of washing line and the braking system was your foot. Our road was on a fairly steep hill leading directly onto a busier through-road. No one intervened when we raced the carts from the top of the street not even when we tied the carts together and went down the hill as a train with very little chance of stopping at the bottom!

At least once every summer one of our friends would wander off leaving the rest of us to search and shout after him and then have to return home and inform his mum he was missing. No one ever suggested calling the police. Instead the whole street would set off as a search party, find our friend fishing for sticklebacks and end the evening picking blackberries.

These were indeed Ladybird days. I remember the first summer I passed without grazing my knees and I think I must have known these days were numbered.

The other thing I noticed whilst looking through the Ladybird book illustrations was that there were lots of examples of people eating delicious food. So today we had high tea in the summerhouse and had our own Ladybird day. Lots of sandwiches, cakes and lemonade.

What I did today: Red sky at night: Angel Delight!

In a post a few weeks ago I wrote that, to celebrate the end of lockdown, I want to hold a 70s style buffet party. I have been given loads of advice, solicited and unsolicited, about what I should serve and what has really intrigued me is what people have said they remember about desserts from the 70s.

The checkout lady in the supermarket said “Birds Trifle. My mum used to make two, one orange and one strawberry flavour, whenever we had a party”.

One of my friends told me they always had a huge Sara Lee Black Forest Gateau. These were bought frozen and there was a very small margin for error when defrosting. The difference between still frozen solid in the middle and thawed to the point when the piped cream started to disintegrate was maybe 10 minutes.

I vaguely remember a dessert called Sweetheart that came in a can. You had to mix it with milk and leave it to firm up before eating. We also used to have tinned fruit cocktail with evaporated milk until my brother said it made his nose feel funny.

So; thinking about my party, I have had a go at recreating a couple of these fabulous desserts starting with Birds Trifle. We used to love these when we were children, especially the topping but I remember they were quite expensive so I guess we only had them for birthday teas.

The box doesn’t look as if it’s changed since the 70s.

Biggest disappointment: The packet of sprinkles had no sprinkles inside so I had to buy some.

So the instructions were easy to follow, everything went according to plan and the end result looked fantastic. The trifle tasted exactly as I remember. Weirdly though the cats didn’t like the Dream Topping even though it’s made with milk.
I think trifle might turn out to be a more of a “sit down at a table to eat” dish so, sadly, I don’t think I’ll serve it at my party.

Jelly and custard which looks a bit lumpy but actually wasn’t.

I borrowed Mum’s old trifle dish from my dad because that’s what she used to make trifles in.

I then started thinking about Black Forest Gateau. I want my buffet food to be bite size where possible so guests can pile up a plate and mingle. At one summer party I had, a slightly tiddly woman, who actually no one would admit to inviting, cut herself a slice of chocolate cake, watched as it slowly slid off her plate and surreptitiously ground it into the carpet with her foot. I’m not risking that again.

So I baked a batch of mini chocolate sponge cakes., split and brushed the bases with cherry and kirsch syrup*, filled them with black cherry jam and chantilly cream, topped with more cream and sprinkled with grated chocolate.

* I used the syrup from a jar of Opies Black Cherries with Luxardo Kirsch to brush the bases.

I think the cakes turned out really well. My husband tried one and said it tasted just like Black Forest Gateau!

Finally, on my 70s desserts journey into the past:

Strawberry Angel Delight with sprinkles.

Made in minutes, tasted delightful and the cats liked it!
I just have to think of how I can use it in a recipe for my party.

What I did today: My New Pet.

Our local supermarket has been selling fresh yeast having run out of stocks of dried yeast before the start of lockdown. When I was a child my mum used to buy fresh yeast to use for baking. It came wrapped in brown paper and was sold in the village pet shop which now seems a little strange but after my experiences this week, I am starting to think a pet shop is probably the right place to buy fresh yeast.

The supermarket yeast was sold from the dairy fridge in clear plastic bags. A helpful assistant advised us to “Keep it cold and keep in mind it will probably die after a couple of days.” Not the best sales patter but if the shop that used to sell us our son’s goldfish had been as honest an awful lot of heartache and lolly stick grave markers could have been avoided.

So my new pet made it safely home and into the fridge. The following morning I made some bread. You have to use twice the amount of fresh yeast to dried yeast and it needs to be activated using sugar and lukewarm water.

The biggest problem I had was I only had plain flour. The dough took twice as long to knead as dough made with bread flour but I got a good rise and the bread tasted fine.

Bread made with plain flour and fresh yeast

Day 2 and my new pet was starting to look a bit worse for wear. It had broken down into small crumbs and looked quite dry. I wasn’t sure if it was still alive. However, a meal of sugar and water revived it and it was soon bubbling away.

“I think I’ll make a ginger beer plant.” I said to my husband. His reaction was not completely favourable and based on past experience.; “So you are going to use that yeast that you’ve worried and fussed over for two days to create something that is going to cause you even more worry and stress?”

Actually I ended up with two lively little pot pets. I used the last of the yeast to make a ginger beer starter.

Yeast, sugar, ground ginger, a few raisins and water.

It will need feeding once a day with ground ginger and sugar for a week. It can then be used to make ginger beer.

So what about my other little pot pet? It is possible to make a ginger beer plant without using yeast. If the ingredients and the conditions are right wild yeast spores will settle onto your plant and start to ferment. I have tried this countless times and never had any success. I did quite a bit of research and found a recipe that uses fresh ginger* I tried it and it worked! The only thing I would say is I added a few raisins which might be cheating slightly.

Freshly grated ginger, lemon juice, sugar and a few raisins.

This one will need feeding with fresh ginger and sugar once a day and is ready to use after four days.

So today I boiled up more fresh ginger in 2 litres of water and also added 4 lemongrass stalks. I added sugar, lemon juice and another 2 litres of water. I then strained in the liquid from my ginger beer plant, stirred and covered. I will leave this for about two weeks then bottle.

I have put the little pot pet into hibernation in the fridge for a few weeks but when I am ready to create a new recipe I’ll take it out and start feeding it again.

The little pet I bought from the supermarket might only have lived for two days but for that brief time the kitchen was filled with the aroma of baking bread and the popping and fizzing sounds of fermenting yeast and I am left with the promise of a summer’s supply of homemade ginger beer.

* Check out Judy Gowan’s amazing website where I found the no-yeast ginger beer plant recipe.

GINGER BUG – THE EASY STARTER FOR HOMEMADE GINGER BEER & FIZZY DRINKS

Serious Sunday: Where do you go to my lovely?

As part of its Corona Virus coverage The Guardian newspaper has posted a series of short films on its website one of which is about an hotel in Shrewsbury that has opened its doors to some of the city’s homeless for the duration of Lockdown. It is, for the most part, an uplifting story. The guests talk about recovering their dignity, feeling safe and being in the rare position of being able to plan for the future. Both staff and guests describe the shared sense of family. The local residents and businesses have shown their support by donating food and clothes with the exception of a few whose behaviour and attitudes towards the hotel’s new guests are described by the manager as “discrimination”.

The first homeless person I ever knew was a schoolfriend. Not homeless in the sense that she was wandering the streets with her possessions in a backpack but homeless in the sense that she hadn’t the security of having one place she could call home.. She could not get on with her mum’s partner. He gave an ultimatum “It’s me or her!” and, well, it wasn’t my school friend. She moved in with her gran which was OK. Except at weekends Gran’s boyfriend would stay over and they wanted the house to themselves. So where did my friend go at weekends? To other friend’s houses where she slept on the sofa. One friend’s parents let her sleep in their shed if the weather would allow.

Twenty years forward in time and one of my students was living with her aunt having been removed from the care of her mum who refused to ditch her violent partner. My student regularly absconded from her aunt’s to be brought back by the police after a couple of night’s rough sleeping. Her aunt tired of this and said she could not cope with the responsibility of caring for her niece any longer. So where did my student go? To council-approved bed and breakfast accommodation. A temporary solution until more suitable accommodation for a 16 year old girl could be found but she was still there six months later.

About a year ago two guys were rough-sleeping in the multi-story car park I use for work. It was relentlessly cold and draughty but, I guess, safer and more private than a shop doorway or subway. One of them told me his girlfriend had thrown him out and until his benefits claim went through he had no choice but to sleep rough. I promised them a couple of sleeping bags but the next day they were gone; moved on following complaints from other car park users. Where did they go ? Maybe somewhere that wasn’t as safe as the car park.

Last night as we left the supermarket a young man with a dog stopped us. His first words to us; “Please don’t judge me on what you see now. I’m not really like this”. He told us he was trying to get together enough money for accommodation for the next two nights . For £15 a night he would get bed and breakfast at this one particular place he described and they accepted dogs. When we drove past him he was smoking a cig and chatting to one of the guys from the supermarket. They looked about the same age. Maybe they went to school together. Where did he go that lovely young man? Did he use the money he was given for his two-nights’ accomodation? If he did where will he go on Monday night?

One of the things that came out strongly in the story of the homeless at the hotel was a sense of optimism about the future. Two of the guys were planning to apply for jobs at the hotel and there was an overwhelming sense that, for the hotel staff and their guests, whatever happens, they will always look on each other as family.

There is much debate now about our lives post- lockdown, how things will never be quite the same and that we will have to adjust to “ a new normal”. The guests at the hotel are already living “a new normal” having put down shallow roots there and invested in their temporary home by carrying out odd jobs and helping with chores. Will their inevitable departure merely signal a return to their “old normal” and where will they go?

Check out the Shrewsbury hotel story here.