Around the 1940s, the time of the Second World War and after, the United Kingdom had very little food stocks.
Merchant ships bringing supplies to the British Isles were being bombed out of the seas, so food was in very short supply.
School meals for me were not only a lifesaver, but also Manna from heaven. Rationing was in force and as you see there was very little of it.
The Government introduced school meals. One of the reasons behind this was to increase nutrition for schoolchildren; another one was, so that children of poor families would have at least one good meal a day free. (The cost of a school meal then was 2d or 5p in decimal currency I was one of these poor children and was entitled to free school meals. My father in the1930s had been in the R.A.F. and served in the Middle East (Baghdad) and had contacted T.B. His discharge papers did not have enough information for him to be entitled to a pension; there were no social services, (DHSS) etc; so we must have been poverty-stricken. It was not until 1951/52, after a local M.P. took up his case that a pension was granted.
School meals for me were not only a lifesaver, but also Manna from heaven.
To have a cooked meal everyday and “pudding”, every day was not only a luxury, but also a discovery of different kinds of foods and tastes.
Some of the meals I remember having were, liver and onion, steak & kidney pie or pudding, stew & dumplings, shepherds pie and roast pork (during the war there were special dust bins that were shared between house-holds, that were called the “pig bins” and every scrap of food that was not fit to eat went into the pig bin to feed the pigs), we didn’t have fridges in those days. I remember these bins stank to high heaven but the pork tasted lovely! These days with our “Health and Safety” pig bins would not have been allowed.
Puddings! (Yum!) Things like semolina & sago puddings, I hear people deriding these deserts today, but with a dob of jam they were lovely, as were pink blancmange, apple pie, steamed ginger sponge, jam tart, prunes, figs, all served with lovely thick custard,
( the only one of these I hated was figs).
When I was aged about 9/10 school meals were available in the summer holidays from Monday to Friday for children who received free school meals in term time; so off I went to school to have my dinner from Monday to Friday for my main meal of the day. This must have been a relief for my parents as there were three children in the family and no extra money to feed us in school holidays.
I left school at 15 to start work. I was married in my 20s and had 2 children of my own in the 1960s. When they started school they stayed at school for their mid-day meal. Fortunately I was able to pay for their meals at a cost then of 1s 9d or 9p. Gradually the price increased in 1975 to 15p, 1977 to 25p.
In the late 1970s, the government of the day aimed to cut the £380 million cost of meals by half by reducing quality and using more convenience foods. The cost went up to 30p. Cash cafeterias were started up in secondary schools Between 1988/1992Social Security rules tightened, and each time thousands of children lost out on free school meals. 1994 Contract caterers were brought into school kitchens. Processed and pre-cooked foods needing less preparation replaced fresh raw ingredients. Unhealthy, cheaper options became widespread. Chips became one of the most popular things on the menu and beef burgers, snacks of crisps, chocolate bars, junk foods containing saturated fats which could lead to obesity, high cholesterol and maybe heart decease in later years.
From 1971 until 1985 when my children were both at school I took a job as a Kitchen Assistant in a special school. The school wasn’t affected by all the cut-backs, as some of the children came from deprived homes. There were about 100 children attending this school, 40 of them were full time boarders from Monday to Friday, these children had breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper. Children with special diets were all catered for. All children attending this school had a mid-day meal. The menus were monitored so that all the children had a healthy diet.
A lot of today’s children are overweight; some are even classed as obese, which is not only a growing concern of the Government, but of the department of Health, doctors & health workers. This is the opposite of the war years; I don’t think I can remember even one overweight child. There was never enough food; everything was rationed, with not very much fresh fruit, only those which was homegrown. Grow for victory was one of the slogans of the time. The only fruit I remember were apples, pears, gooseberries & cherries in the summer time and blackberries that we picked ourselves. The only time we had citrus fruits was at Christmas time where we might find an orange, or a tangerine or maybe a few nuts in our stockings, which was a part of our Christmas presents. The first time I saw a real banana let alone tasted one was 3 or 4 years after the war was over.
Jamie Oliver (see Jamies School Dinners website here) a very well known chef of the day has taken up the cudgel of school meals with the government, and has proved that with a small amount of extra money and a little imagination school meals can be made nutritious and appealing to the school children of today.
He has campaigned for more money from the government and has succeeded in getting an increase but not quite as much as he was hoping for.
More strength to your elbow Jamie, I hope that with all the enthusiasm you showed, and your good ideas, rub off on all concerned with School Meals, and you achieve all that you set out to do.
I firmly believe that education is not only to teach the three Rs but so that children can learn about many other things, one of them being about healthy diets. The food they eat is very important towards them living a long, happy & healthy life.