Canteen tokens

[malj1]

Here is a Woolworth's, at Blackpool UK, menu from 22 September 1941 giving details of prices during WW2.

[malj1]

John Player & Sons ½d same both sides. bronze, 27.1mm.

Do you remember the "Players Please" signs that were displayed on the tobacconists shop and hoardings everywhere?

I have now acquired a penny token in uniface iron (steel) 27.4mm which is unusual as most seem to be in bronze.

[Figleaf]

Kirklees, apparently for school restaurants, except that it's for dinner? Late education made you hungry, but you can have only a one day portion

Peter

[Figleaf]

Looks Victorian, so an enlightened employer. I have seen co-op tokens with a similar reverse. Got too many hits on Griffith works, but would like to identify at least where the Griffith works stood.

Peter

[FosseWay]

Kirklees, apparently for school restaurants, except that it's for dinner? Late education made you hungry, but you can have only a one day portion

Peter

Warning: You are entering a linguistic minefield 

Exactly what people in England (specifically) call the main meal of the day, and consequently what they call the other one that isn't breakfast, is mired in regional and class-related differences. "Dinner" is used by many, including most of those who speak "BBC English", to mean the hot meal, regardless of when in the day you eat it. "School dinner" is the standard phrase for hot food served at school (conversely, where I grew up at least, kids who took their own food ate their "packed lunch"). 

So the reference to "dinner" here doesn't imply a candlelit table with waiter service and wine, but rather the unmentionables that inspired the playground rhyme that was common when I was a kid, sung to the tune of Frère Jacques: 

Our school dinners
Our school dinners
Concrete chips 
Concrete chips
Soggy semolina
Soggy semolina
Makes me sick
Makes me sick

[brandm24]

Warning: You are entering a linguistic minefield 
 

So the reference to "dinner" here doesn't imply a candlelit table with waiter service and wine, but rather the unmentionables that inspired the playground rhyme that was common when I was a kid, sung to the tune of Frère Jacques:

Our school dinners
Our school dinners
Concrete chips
Concrete chips
Soggy semolina
Soggy semolina
Makes me sick
Makes me sick

Our school lunches here were much like your semolina...more often used as missiles in a food fight rather than eaten. "Dinner" was far too elegant a term to describe our...well, lunches.

Bruce

[Figleaf]

My children grew up in France and attended a school that had a section for education for restaurants and cooking. No candles and nobody was ever clear about the wine (hey, this is France!), but the waiters were class mates (ever tried to peel an orange with fork and knife? They were supposed to be able to do it) and the food was meant to be highfalutin', except that the "cooks in training" were learning the trade also. Great stories, e.g. on how a "waiter in training" couldn't get the flambée burning, overdid the cognac and was ready to burn the school down. Result: both my children and at least one grandchild have cooking as a hobby.

Life in France can be sumptuous.

Peter

[FosseWay]

Looks Victorian, so an enlightened employer. I have seen co-op tokens with a similar reverse. Got too many hits on Griffith works, but would like to identify at least where the Griffith works stood.

Peter

Griffith.jpeg

Statistically most likely South Wales (the old one, not the one in Australia) - Griffith is a Welsh surname and most Welsh industry is along the south coast between Swansea/Abertawe and Newport/Casnewydd.

[Figleaf]

So statistically, the Rhondda valley and mining.

Peter

[FosseWay]

Rhondda - entirely possible.

Mining - less so. Mines are generally called "mines" in their names. "Works" is a somewhat outdated term used for premises/companies that manufacture something, probably using stuff the miners got out of the ground. But it could well still be associated with the wider mining industry, as a company making products used in the mines.

[Figleaf]

M for mines? Not likely. However, mines spewed miners choirs and miners marching bands...

Peter