These were the years when the “bean cookers” in the Staffordshire School Meals Service still had more influence than the “bean -counter” or the “book -cooker” policymakers, who were busying themselves losing the plot just over the political horizon. (Expect mail on this one. Ed.)
Here is the first of three essays on the subject, covering Five Decades of School Dinners.
The Midstaffordian working title for this venture is “Am Them Kids All Right?”
[Regular readers will be indulgent of the crowd-pleasing nostalgic tone, and should feel free to add their own unpleasant 1960’s memories of dental caries, inedible items and wasted food in the interests of balance. Ed]
January 1961 i hold on to the Silver Cross pushchair as Mom walks us past Hassall’s sweet shop then turns out of High Street and into Pinfold Lane i am four i am wearing mittens and my favourite home-knitted green Balaclava helmet my breath freezes on the woolly mass in front of my mouth my little sister is wrapped up snugly in the pushchair Santa gave her the same winter overcoat as mine with six big buttons on the front i am five i haven't learned punctuation yet bit I'm getting the hang of CAPITALS. Oh. That's better.
Mom pauses at the oxblood steel railings behind the school. The kids are playing kiss-chase in the crackling morning air. Behind us, although it is mid-morning, the sun is barely above the horizon, and the long shadows of the kisschasers are dashing across the pencil-grey surface of the playground.
“Orright Auntie Edna”
Shout a dozen kids in rough unison, some of whom are genuinely cousins, some not.
“Is your Alan stoppin’ dinners when he starts school?” Enquires a voice from the line of littlies pressed against the railings.
I don’t hear the answer.
I am absorbed in the study of the pyramid-shaped white cartons which are piled into a crate on the other side of the playground, next to the Victorian gothic revival doorway of the canteen kitchen.
“Them’uns am all empty now. That’s our milk what we ‘ave before playtime that is”
Cheslyn Hay County Primary School 1960. Photo & map courtesy CHLHS
“Our Fred”, a real cousin, is enlightening me, having seen the puzzled, inquiring look.
“Are. Missis Jeavons cuts a bit off the corner o’ the box thing, an’ we ‘ave a straw an’all. An’ we doe atter pay for it neither.”
While Mom and the kids exchange chatter, I imagine what icy cold milk would taste like through a waxed paper straw.
Mrs Jeavons appears at the top of the steps, smiles in our direction, and blows a whistle. The kids say “Ta-ra Auntie Edna”, and assemble themselves into four shuffling lines, which quickly quieten down and file through another ogival gothic arch, into the corridor…
It was September before I learned what milk from a white “Jublee” carton tasted like.
On that first day of school, Mrs Jeavons snipped the corner of the pack, just before play-time, in the prescribed manner. Her scissors had pointy ends: we were only allowed to use the ones with round ends until we graduated to The Top Class, five years hence.
Like the other kids in the infants’ class, I had selected my straw from a grey carton marked “100 waxed drinking straws”.
The only sounds for the next three minutes were the gaggled gluggings and soft slurpings of forty straws.
Mrs Jeavons watched benignly over the silent communion of our third-of-a pint-sized community.
Photo courtesy National Archives
At playtime, refuelled with egalitarian energy, we zoomed around the playground pretending to be Spitfires or Hurricanes.
The school bully forced me to crash-land in the dark, northern corner, next to the bell tower. He asserted his identity by boxing my ears. When I refused to cry, and he saw that I had no morning snack, he re-joined the dog-fighters and looked for another little kid. (It would be some time before I was able to even the score using a bar of ex-lax laxative chocolate convincingly moulded into Cadbury’s Buttons. )
Being the youngest and smallest, I made friends that with the biggest kid in the class, who told me his name was Kev.
“Doe yoe worry, Mairte. That milk’ll soon build yer up. ‘Ave a Tairter Puff.”
He proffered an open bag of Potato Puffs, which he’d bought with a threepenny bit.
“Am yoe stoppin’ dinners? Me mom to’d me as the lairdy in charge o’ the cookin’ is Missis Cartwright, an ‘ers a bostin’ cook. Yoe wairte till yoe tairste ‘er pairstry.
Kev explained, in a scientific manner beyond his years, the three luncheon options:
“See, yoe’ve got three choices:
(i) Gooin’ wum. Yer can goo ter yer Gran’s or back wum if it ay too fur ter walk.
(ii) Stoppin’ samwidgiz. That ay too bad if yer Mom puts a bit’o variety in theer. But yer doe want salmon spread more than once a wick.
(iii) Stoppin’ dinners. It costs a bob a day, burra lot o’ the kids get free ‘uns.”
I wanted to learn analysis like that, and decided to try to casually sprinkle some (i), (ii) and (iii) type punctuational elements into conversation at the earliest opportunity.
The whistle blew, and I fell into file in front of Kev.
Lunchtime arrived after a reading lesson with Janet and John, Book One. Pink cover. I could read already, but kept it quiet as I didn’t want any newly-found friends discovering a smart-arse in their midst.
The school canteen was a tribute to the sobriety, practicality and occasional wackiness of its Victorian designers. The aforementioned gothic doors and windows were no doubt a nod to ecclesiastical respectability and other-worldliness, circa 1880. The window ledges were high: seated pupils could not see out. There was plenty of light on sunny days, and no distractions from the grown-ups’ world outside. During the six years of our primary schooling, our only view when day-dreaming was the Rosemary Tileries roof-tiles of the houses in Hatherton Street, and the occasional bemused swallow on the single telephone wire across the road.
Pinfold Lane School, from Hatherton St. circa 1915 Courtesy CHLHS
In the eyes of a five-year-old, the dining room seemed as capacious as any Oxford College refectory. Hot dinners and puddings were served from a hatchway at the southern end. The smells of home cooking diffused into the seating area. Today it was roast lamb, with bright green peas, scoops of mashed potato and steaming gravy from aluminium jugs. The potato had a sprinkling of dried parsley: we all looked at it carefully, then at one another before cautiously digging in. We sat at sixties Formica tables of 8. My cousin Fred was a Big Kid, and so had the job of Server.
Fifty years later, my revisionist memory tells me that we all ate every bit. It also indicates that pudding was pineapple crush with crumbly pastry and a flourish of mock cream. Water was poured from aluminium jugs, too, and into “Made in France” Duralex glasses. There was once again that feeling of communion, of a moment shared. A moment of normality.
Class favourites during thosr primary schooling years were cheese & potato pie, liver wrapped in bacon, even …SALAD (pronounced “sallid”). Chocolate sponge pudding with peppermint custard. Shortbread with pink sauce. Slabs of jam tart…
With our young minds well-nourished, in the playground after lunch we could hone our punctuation skills by pondering on such mysteries as:
(i) “Why do they put Made in France in English on them Durex glasses, Kev?” (ii) "Kev, how do they mek them milk cartons?"...
"Like this, Mairte"
In the good years, we paid a shilling for each meal. When our families fell on hard times, some of us kids qualified for “Free Dinners”, and got a life-lesson in how to cope with peer-group social stigma.
In 1961, the School Meals Service, and the supply of Free School Milk seemed to be as perennial a fixture in our everyday lives as those gothic revival buildings...
Stay tuned for this prequel's sequel, when we return to the 1970's.
We’ll see the emergence of Costcutter Analysis Milk Snatching.
Then, in the hope that maybe history could teach us something, we’ll travel to 1980, for a feast of Economic Fundamentalism, and the genesis of an obesity epidemic.
Then we’ll share some Good News Initiatives from the ‘90’s and the Noughties, and come bang up to date with Food For Thought for the Tenties.
[Regular readers will be indulgent of the crowd-pleasing nostalgic tone, and should feel free to add their own unpleasant 1960’s memories of dental caries, inedible items and wasted food in the interests of balance. Ed]
January 1961 i hold on to the Silver Cross pushchair as Mom walks us past Hassall’s sweet shop then turns out of High Street and into Pinfold Lane i am four i am wearing mittens and my favourite home-knitted green Balaclava helmet my breath freezes on the woolly mass in front of my mouth my little sister is wrapped up snugly in the pushchair Santa gave her the same winter overcoat as mine with six big buttons on the front i am five i haven't learned punctuation yet bit I'm getting the hang of CAPITALS. Oh. That's better.
Mom pauses at the oxblood steel railings behind the school. The kids are playing kiss-chase in the crackling morning air. Behind us, although it is mid-morning, the sun is barely above the horizon, and the long shadows of the kisschasers are dashing across the pencil-grey surface of the playground.
“Orright Auntie Edna”
Shout a dozen kids in rough unison, some of whom are genuinely cousins, some not.
“Is your Alan stoppin’ dinners when he starts school?” Enquires a voice from the line of littlies pressed against the railings.
I don’t hear the answer.
I am absorbed in the study of the pyramid-shaped white cartons which are piled into a crate on the other side of the playground, next to the Victorian gothic revival doorway of the canteen kitchen.
“Them’uns am all empty now. That’s our milk what we ‘ave before playtime that is”
Cheslyn Hay County Primary School 1960. Photo & map courtesy CHLHS
“Our Fred”, a real cousin, is enlightening me, having seen the puzzled, inquiring look.
“Are. Missis Jeavons cuts a bit off the corner o’ the box thing, an’ we ‘ave a straw an’all. An’ we doe atter pay for it neither.”
While Mom and the kids exchange chatter, I imagine what icy cold milk would taste like through a waxed paper straw.
Mrs Jeavons appears at the top of the steps, smiles in our direction, and blows a whistle. The kids say “Ta-ra Auntie Edna”, and assemble themselves into four shuffling lines, which quickly quieten down and file through another ogival gothic arch, into the corridor…
It was September before I learned what milk from a white “Jublee” carton tasted like.
On that first day of school, Mrs Jeavons snipped the corner of the pack, just before play-time, in the prescribed manner. Her scissors had pointy ends: we were only allowed to use the ones with round ends until we graduated to The Top Class, five years hence.
Like the other kids in the infants’ class, I had selected my straw from a grey carton marked “100 waxed drinking straws”.
The only sounds for the next three minutes were the gaggled gluggings and soft slurpings of forty straws.
Mrs Jeavons watched benignly over the silent communion of our third-of-a pint-sized community.
Photo courtesy National Archives
At playtime, refuelled with egalitarian energy, we zoomed around the playground pretending to be Spitfires or Hurricanes.
The school bully forced me to crash-land in the dark, northern corner, next to the bell tower. He asserted his identity by boxing my ears. When I refused to cry, and he saw that I had no morning snack, he re-joined the dog-fighters and looked for another little kid. (It would be some time before I was able to even the score using a bar of ex-lax laxative chocolate convincingly moulded into Cadbury’s Buttons. )
Being the youngest and smallest, I made friends that with the biggest kid in the class, who told me his name was Kev.
“Doe yoe worry, Mairte. That milk’ll soon build yer up. ‘Ave a Tairter Puff.”
He proffered an open bag of Potato Puffs, which he’d bought with a threepenny bit.
“Am yoe stoppin’ dinners? Me mom to’d me as the lairdy in charge o’ the cookin’ is Missis Cartwright, an ‘ers a bostin’ cook. Yoe wairte till yoe tairste ‘er pairstry.
Kev explained, in a scientific manner beyond his years, the three luncheon options:
“See, yoe’ve got three choices:
(i) Gooin’ wum. Yer can goo ter yer Gran’s or back wum if it ay too fur ter walk.
(ii) Stoppin’ samwidgiz. That ay too bad if yer Mom puts a bit’o variety in theer. But yer doe want salmon spread more than once a wick.
(iii) Stoppin’ dinners. It costs a bob a day, burra lot o’ the kids get free ‘uns.”
I wanted to learn analysis like that, and decided to try to casually sprinkle some (i), (ii) and (iii) type punctuational elements into conversation at the earliest opportunity.
The whistle blew, and I fell into file in front of Kev.
Lunchtime arrived after a reading lesson with Janet and John, Book One. Pink cover. I could read already, but kept it quiet as I didn’t want any newly-found friends discovering a smart-arse in their midst.
The school canteen was a tribute to the sobriety, practicality and occasional wackiness of its Victorian designers. The aforementioned gothic doors and windows were no doubt a nod to ecclesiastical respectability and other-worldliness, circa 1880. The window ledges were high: seated pupils could not see out. There was plenty of light on sunny days, and no distractions from the grown-ups’ world outside. During the six years of our primary schooling, our only view when day-dreaming was the Rosemary Tileries roof-tiles of the houses in Hatherton Street, and the occasional bemused swallow on the single telephone wire across the road.
Pinfold Lane School, from Hatherton St. circa 1915 Courtesy CHLHS
In the eyes of a five-year-old, the dining room seemed as capacious as any Oxford College refectory. Hot dinners and puddings were served from a hatchway at the southern end. The smells of home cooking diffused into the seating area. Today it was roast lamb, with bright green peas, scoops of mashed potato and steaming gravy from aluminium jugs. The potato had a sprinkling of dried parsley: we all looked at it carefully, then at one another before cautiously digging in. We sat at sixties Formica tables of 8. My cousin Fred was a Big Kid, and so had the job of Server.
Fifty years later, my revisionist memory tells me that we all ate every bit. It also indicates that pudding was pineapple crush with crumbly pastry and a flourish of mock cream. Water was poured from aluminium jugs, too, and into “Made in France” Duralex glasses. There was once again that feeling of communion, of a moment shared. A moment of normality.
Class favourites during thosr primary schooling years were cheese & potato pie, liver wrapped in bacon, even …SALAD (pronounced “sallid”). Chocolate sponge pudding with peppermint custard. Shortbread with pink sauce. Slabs of jam tart…
With our young minds well-nourished, in the playground after lunch we could hone our punctuation skills by pondering on such mysteries as:
(i) “Why do they put Made in France in English on them Durex glasses, Kev?” (ii) "Kev, how do they mek them milk cartons?"...
"Like this, Mairte"
In the good years, we paid a shilling for each meal. When our families fell on hard times, some of us kids qualified for “Free Dinners”, and got a life-lesson in how to cope with peer-group social stigma.
In 1961, the School Meals Service, and the supply of Free School Milk seemed to be as perennial a fixture in our everyday lives as those gothic revival buildings...
Stay tuned for this prequel's sequel, when we return to the 1970's.
We’ll see the emergence of Costcutter Analysis Milk Snatching.
Then, in the hope that maybe history could teach us something, we’ll travel to 1980, for a feast of Economic Fundamentalism, and the genesis of an obesity epidemic.
Then we’ll share some Good News Initiatives from the ‘90’s and the Noughties, and come bang up to date with Food For Thought for the Tenties.
AB
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