Quote:
Originally Posted by SeaBookGuy
Since it's vaguely related to the thread topic -- when is "teatime"? And is it a class distinction, or does almost everyone partake of it?
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During my time in the US Navy, I would spend a couple of months each year in Scotland. I was on a submarine(s) that would spend a month at a time doing repairs and maintenance in the Holy Loch in preparation for a two month deployment. The nearest town was Dunoon, and we would spend considerable time carousing the pubs there.
They had an uncivilized custom there, in that they would shutter all of the pubs during “Queen’s Hour”, which as I recall happened every day between 2:00 and 4:00 PM. The locals called these unfortunate periods “Tea Time”, and they were most inconvenient for a young Yank sailor with limited free time.
I soon learned that the pubs on the ferryboats would stay open during Tea Time, and around 1:30 or so, I would get on the first ferry large enough to have an on board watering hole going
ANYWHERE! Once I got on one going somewhere, and around three, began to get hungry. So I got off at the first town, which turned out to be Faslane, and went to an Indian restraint that served the best curried prawns that I ever had.
While my mates and I were eating, we noticed that at the next table, there was a group of young men with English accents talking about “refits”, and “crew changes” and “deployments. So we introduced ourselves as crewmembers of the USS Tecumseh, and learned that they were our counterparts on the HMS Repulse.
PARTY TIME!
I have to report that out British brothers were the most wonderful hosts that I ever encountered during my 23 year career in the Navy, and will never forget the wonderful time they showed us.
Despite the uncivilized hours of operations of the pubs and the most horrid weather imaginable, and oh yes and the warm beer, I have fond memories of my time in Scotland.