My cookers are stolen!

At the end of August (1973) I drive to school to check that my cookery room is ready for the start of a busy autumn term. 

Jim, the caretaker unlocks my door with new keys. 

‘Hello Jim – Why different keys?’

‘New locks, Jenny.’ 

He hands me the bunch and scurries off like a ferret on a mission to his hidey hole at the far end of the school. Jim would like my cookery room condemned, bulldozed and made into a proper classroom with no leaking taps, blocked drains, exploding cookers, scampering mice and moans from me, the demanding cookery teacher.

The summer heat blasts out as I push open the door and there’s a strange, empty, smell. Something’s wrong. Thick brown electric cables stick out from the walls with empty spaces where my electric cookers were attached. All missing. Someone has cut the wires. It’s dangerous. We could be electrocuted.

‘Jim!’ 

I run after him. 

‘Help! Jim, come and look.’

He ambles back with his fed up look. Hide and seek is his favourite game but this time I’ve found him and I need answers. I point to the wires. 

‘Are they live?’ 

‘Yes. Don’t touch anything. I’ll get a ladder.’

He returns, climbs and pushes up the red lever on the fuse box, which is screwed high up on the wall above my gas fired drying cabinets.

‘The electricity is off. It’s not dangerous now.’ 

Jim is in a hurry and packs his ladder and speeds off down the school corridor. 

No other staff are in today. No doubt they will return tanned and healthy, ready to teach in their shiny, clean departments but I’ve got a cookery room with no electricity and half my cookers are missing. The Gas Board would be delighted that their gas ovens are still here. Their cookers are too secure and heavy to be nicked.

Looking around there’s more destruction. The cupboard door hiding my precious Kenwood Chef is open and empty except for a few pastry crumbs. All the attachments have gone – the curly bread dough hook, the huge wire beater to make meringues, and the tall liquidiser jug, a favourite for milkshakes and soups. The stockroom door is smashed open and my chest freezer is missing. The one I spent so long persuading the headmaster to buy. Bags of squelchy peas, slices of mouldy Mothers Pride bread and packs of margarine and lard rot on the wooden floorboards. And the shelf where Cynthia stacked the electric beaters that we use for foamy eggs for Swiss Rolls is empty too.

There’s more brutality. Someone’s stabbed the pile of Tate and Lyle sugar bags on the top shelf, cascades of sugar crystals drift onto the floor and mix with sticky yellow syrup from the kicked-over Lyle’s Golden Syrup tins. Is it a revenge break in? Do any of my students hate me that much?

 Jim has more questions to answer. He would rather polish floors with his swirly cleaning machine than deal with the devastation in my room. I am a first class nuisance. He’s hiding in his room with a large mug of hot tea.

‘Jim – have you told the police?’

‘Yes, yes, Jenny. List the missing stuff and we’ll make an insurance claim and let the police know the details.

How am I going to teach with no electricity? There’ll be howls if they can’t cook. Bloody subject with all its bloody equipment and stacks of food ingredients. It’s all very well for teachers in their sparkling, freshly painted classrooms with polished floors and shiny desks, all smelling nice and fresh of Johnson’s Wax and Cardinal Polish. Maybe I’ll change and teach Maths. It’s easy. Maths teachers trot about carrying piles of books, pack up before the bell, chat in the staffroom drinking and smoking then scurry home straight after the bell rings. I’m left cleaning, washing up, tidying and loading the twin tub. Bah.

But with no power how will I manage? No lights, no fridge, no freezer, no electrical equipment. Madness. I put on my Marigold gloves, button up my new pink overall and begin cleaning up. And no, the cleaners won’t do it. It’s the job of a cookery teacher. Me.