Breakfast, Dinner and Tea

I was brought up in North East Essex & we had breakfast, dinner & tea. Dinner around 1pm was the main cooked meal & tea would be sandwiches &, maybe cake or jelly. My dad worked on a farm & would have a flask of tea & a snack for during the morning. Our neighbours sent their children to private school so always had 'lunch' & 'dinner'. So, maybe its only 'posh' southerners who have lunch - which puts me firmly outside yowzer's 'you southerners' ;o) BTW a 'round' of sandwiches is 2 slices put together to make a whole sandwich for me too. The word that confused me when I moved from the south was 'lobby'. Where I came from, its the bit between your front door & the inside rooms so I was confused when my friend said ' I must get the lobby ready for dinner' (meaning evening meal I might add). Couldn't think why her family would eat there!! For anyone who isnt familiar with the word its basically a stew - my theory is that its because you can 'lob' anything in it??

I come originally from the MIdlands and there its breakfast, dinner and tea. The mid day dinner was the main cooked meal of the day, tea was more usually something lighter like welsh rarebit, or smoked haddock. Both of my parents would then have supper too at about nine o'clock at night, which usually consisted of something like tinned tomato on toast, or sandwiches. I think they had elevenses too, just a snack to see them through the morning. I think this number of meals was because it was an industrial area where the men started work very early in the morning and did very hard physical labour so all the extra food and meals was to provide the huge amounts of energy they needed and also to see them through the long day. My problem now is in making sandwiches, a round for me means one slice of bread, but for my Australian husband it means one whole sandwich, so I always end up making too few sandwiches for him when he says he wants two rounds.

For me its breakfast, lunch and dinner unless we are having tea instead of dinner! Dinner is the main meal of the day and consists of meat, veg and spuds, pasta or rice etc. We usually have this main meal of the day in the evening. On a Sunday however we have our Sunday dinner at lunchtime and therefore our evening meal becomes tea as this would be something lighter than usual, like a sandwich or something. So whether we call it dinner or tea depends on what we are having really. Have I confused anyone yet?

hi kbbargho I live in the south east of england near the sea and for me it's breakfast, then lunch and dinner although I am the same as lisajb57 and sometimes call it tea do not know why but all my friends and family also do the same probably depends if we have eaten out for lunch or have been out all day on a picnic who knows, but we don't get confused I wonder what it's like in the other parts of england or scotland etc....should be interesting reading what others have to say about breakfast, lunch and dinner or oops maybe tea !

I too am originally from Essex and was brought up by working class parents but we had lunch (i.e. a sandwich) at lunch time and dinner (i.e. meat and 2 veg) at dinner time, except on Sunday's when we'd have 'Sunday Lunch' (meat and 2 veg) at lunch time and then tea (usually toast or crumpets or cheese and biscuits) at dinner time. I was a very confused child.

I always say breakfast, dinner and tea and I am from birmingham. I would imagine that lunch is just a light snack in between breakfast and dinner.Although i have been brought up to have just a sandwich at dinnertime and we always had our main meal at tea time. But my nan and grandad always had their main meal at dinner time and a sandwich at tea time and maybe some fruit at about 8ish in the evening. I guess it is just how you have been brought up.

I am from same part of the world as carol and we always use breakfast dinner and tea, though sometimes as an adult i say lunch , though i never ever said it as a kid! I am like carol too though, as when in the company of ( usually) southerners) I say dinner meaning evening meal, as that is what they call it...does it get confusing on a sunday for you southerners as you probably have your Sunday roast ( sunday dinner) at lunch time so waht do you call the evening meal on a sunday?is it then sunday tea?

i live in the north west, and for us its breakfast, dinner and tea, ---- but and i really do not know why, if i,m on my hols, be it in the u.k. or abroad somewhere, i say .. lunch for dinner and dinner for tea, ... why i change it round i cannot say, i just do --the old saying ... nowt as qare as folk .. springs to mind

Both, breakfast is the same, lunch is the same but we sometimes call the evening meal tea or sometimes dinner. But at least hubby and I both know what the other one is referring to so don't have any confusion or problems. Must say I had huge problems in Aussie being understood with the different words they used - they did not understand what jandals were (flip flops) a chilli bin (esky) a section (yard) cozzie (swimmers) backpack (can't even remember their term for this). Was like speaking a foreign language and actually had to change how I spoke to be understood. Had less problems in the UK - bar for McD's staff as you call them value meals here and NZ/Aussie calls them combo.