Afternoon Tea and Slosh at the LAIC

If you have been following for awhile, I have been posting (3/18, 3/28, 4,3) about memories of my year and a half in England when I was an exchange student officer at the Long Armor Infantry School in Bovington Camp, Dorset, England.

A large part of our instruction after that first eight weeks of more or less typical college classes in the sciences was traveling to the various military branch schools to learn how these were applied. For example, we went to the Signal School to learn about electrical engineering and optics; the Royal Artillery for ballistics; and the Royal Engineers for strength of materials and applied construction design just to name a few.

These trips away were usually from Monday to Friday, returning by dinnertime Friday back at Bovington. While we away we would usually stay at the officers’ mess which was a combination hotel and restaurant affair. While I will post about the evening dinners in a later blog, I want to continue on my “coffee and tea” theme.

After the day’s classes at the particular service school around 1530 (3:30 pm), we would return to the mess for the afternoon tea. These teas were more elaborate than the simple tea breaks back at school. We usually found the tea set for us in one of the game or library rooms of the mess at about 1600 (4:00).

It was impressive. In addition to the tea – coffee was generally not served – there were an array of small sandwiches. Cucumber and egg, cheese and pickle were favorites. There were also pastries galore. Not just simple doughnuts, but small bite-size cakes and tarts that could be grabbed up very easily with one hand.

We didn’t want to hurt our appetite since dinner was at 1800, starting with drinks in the mess bar, so we usually worked it off playing Slosh on the mess billiard or Snooker table.

Slosh (also called Crud) differed from the first two mentioned in that you played with only two balls, usually the cue ball and a striped ball, but no sticks. The object was to hit the striped ball by throwing the cue ball along the table top either sinking it in a corner pocket before it stopped rolling. 

Holding and blocking of opponents were encouraged. This variation was called Combat Slosh where junior officers and senior officers were equal. This was the form we played though we were all captains except one Australian major who never played anyhow.

The game was supposedly invented by the Royal Canadian Air Force and was very popular throughout the services of the British Commonwealth as you can well imagine. 

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