Absolutely right.  I was a tiny, skinny kid.  In fact I've only just started to put weight on this past 10 years and I'm still only a size 12 at my biggest. The most I ever weighed in my life was 10 stones when I was pregnant and after that went straight back down to 8.  

I also walked miles all on my own - wouldn't dare let a child do it these days.  Went to ballet three times a week, skating every Saturday.  Took the dog out every day - hardly any sweets, which is probably why I have good teeth.

Oh those gorgeous treacle puddings with custard we used to have.  Sunday nght we used to have bread and the dripping from the lunchtime roast.  Very rarely was anything fried, but when it was, it was lard.

I never had dripping, and feel I must have missed something . Lots of fried breakfasts and pastry, though, and many children were made to eat all the fat on very fatty meat. At school when I was about 10, I was made to sit for a whole afternoon over a plate of fatty gristly meat that I absolutely refused to eat. I won ! Nothing could make me eat it. (I'm sure I've told this story before, but it was a formative moment, teaching me that I could win.)

I always ate like a horse, and I was very thin, too. As you say, lots of exercise, and no eating between meals.

(That expression always reminds me of a favourite quotation from one of Miss Read's books about school life in Oxfordshire. The cleaner  - class snobbery warning! - leaves her a note saying "Cat have et like a horse".)

You were obviously more resourceful than I was, Mort! (Or more deceitful Only joking...)

Just had a thought - fried bread! Wow, that was nice.

I'm not keen on fried bread - unless lightly in olive oil as croutons for soup. My unforgettable first breakfast at boarding school was heated tinned sardines on fried bread, which kept repeating non-stop all morning, and didn't help quell my first-day nerves in the slightest. I've already mentioned the even less palatable spam fritters <fingersdowngulletemoticon>

Having watched tinners carefully sectioning his roast beef last night, I can confirm this plan of attack: it may explain why he's as lean as a whippet, or (in Dundonian) "Eh've seen mair fat on a butcher's pencil". It will surprise few to learn that the Dough happily woolfed down all bar the pattern on the plate in rather shorter order. Spectacularly good it was too: (The Bath Arms, in The Lanes: extra marks, too, for the young barman who came across to us to say that he though the music was probably too loud for us, then reached up and turned the speaker down further.)

I haven't actually managed to get to bed yet, as I'm expecting someone to come round with my old Peugeot 205, which has been neglected at the side of the house: the infamous Dode has managed to write his car off, and the Peugy's been away this weekend to see if she could be coaxed through yet another MOT so that he's got something to use until he gets a new car sorted, and apparently the answer's yes.

Lighting conditions in the pub yesterday were horrible BTW, so there are very few worthwhile pictures. Right now, I'm having problems uploading what is passable: I'll have another go later....

Would you not expect an actor to be a people-watcher,then, tisnow?

What's fried bread?  First thing that comes to my mind is french toast, which I have a fondness for, but that's surely not it.

I had a big thing about that when I was young as well.  More recently, I found myself, in a particular year in college where I ended up eating gross shop-made sandwiches as lot, that I was able to enjoy, for the most part, the fat content of their 'bacon' ('sticky hickory chicken' was my standard for a while: chicken, stuffing, bacon, and relish.  Until they tossed in a piece of glass as well).  But I did not explore these pleasures too much and remained quite picky about what parts of any given meat I might eat.

At least we're not big on bone-crunching/sucking in this culture.