I remember my first school dinner ever. This was at Nether Green School in the mid-fifties. We had something called 'hash' [a new word to me] followed by treacle tart. This was served on rather faded plastic plates probably in pastel pink, blue, yellow and green.

For school dinners we used to go to the basement of the Methodist Church next door. There were long trestle tables with benches each side and a chair at the top end. There was a kind of mini blackboard on the wall with a hand-written menu in chalk capitals. Mrs Dean was the head dinner lady, a small woman with a high voice who didn't like us coming in too noisily.

Dinners used to arrive in the back of a large grey van with the sign 'School Meals' painted on the side. Somebody I know said they once saw a container of stew [or perhaps I should say 'hash'] fall of the back off the van. The driver scraped it off the road and put it back in the container.

Different teachers had different ways of running things. The fairest one was Mr McGrady, who used to send us up in strict rotation starting with a new table each week. Some seemed only to notice only the children sitting near them - especially the ones who were sitting up straight. Mrs Korklein was a very short lady with very high heels, who was pretty assertive with the senior boys if necessary!

A new head followed Mr Thraves, Mr Simmonds I think. He had great vision to improve the school [including its awful outdoor loos] He wanted meals cooked on the premises. I wasn't sure what 'premises' meant but I thought it might be some kind of round shiny oven - a bit like the containers that brought in the hash I mentioned earlier!

I used to love the steamed sponge treacle pudding, and sago milk puddings Bill.

Loved the steamed pudding they gave us. Had never had anything like it at home: very happy introduction.

Loved the steamed pudding they gave us. Had never had anything like it at home: very happy introduction.

The custard was lovely and thick. We didnt mind the lumps did we Bill.

My favourite was the pin wheels served with chocolate custard. Yum!

I remember the lovely creamy rice pudding. Mine was a private Catholic school so we paid for the dinners in our fees.:)

The custard was lovely and thick. We didnt mind the lumps did we Bill.

At High Storrs in the 50s, ours was watery and tastless. School meals were generally awful with one or two entres being the exception. Scoring 1 out of 10 would be grissly stew, boiled potatoes and peas, the latter referred to as bullets which says it all. Completing this stomach wrenching affair would be sago pudding with a glob of jam in the middle or stewed prunes and a ladle full of that horrible custard.But then, there's be that one day a month when we'd get something like cheese and onion pie followed by treacle tart (custard usually declined). I'll give that 8 out of 10. School meals were prepared in a prefab building in the school yard.

One week me and my mates got fed up with the rotten dinners and decided to spend our dinner money on fish and chips at a local chippie. We got hauled into the headmaster's office for six of the best for "bringing disrespect to the school" by walking around the posh neighborhood eating out of newspapers.

had to laugh at that roger. The Catholic nuns cooked ours on site, so they were delicious.

I remember the lovely creamy rice pudding. Mine was a private Catholic school so we paid for the dinners in our fees.:)

I have said this before but here goes.....Its the rice pud with a blob of jam,which when stirred turned pink...:banana:

I loved school dinners, the only thing I didn't like was the cheese wheels, plastic cheese stuff in flaky pastry. I was always up for seconds, thirds & even fourths if I was still in there at the end of dinner.

I miss the chocolate custard. The most popular dessert I remember was when we each got a cup of milkshake. They only ever did about 50 & there were 250 of us in the school so they never lasted long!

I hate talking about food really, I'd sooner eat it, but the period I'm mentioning here was in the 1940's. To be honest the descriptions of the dinners dished up to us at Burngreave Secondary Modern, dont sound any different to what they dished up at Nether Green. Even the color of the delivery van.
I'll never turned my nose up at anything and the least popular dinner back then, were the fish cakes with white sauce, peas and mash. I got to admit it didn't look good. But I found out, that, because it wasn't popular, I could easily get seconds and even thirds sometime. Pretty good for a growing lad in those days. The potatos were always lumpy I might add.

Hi, I went to High Storrs early 60s could never stomach the dinners as they obviously were cooked by the same person from the boy's school.
always took sandwiches - meant that we could go on the grounds a lot quicker to talk to boys, as you remember we were not allowed to mix to any great degree. Miss Furtado was our headmistress and she had the uncanny knack of seeing you come back into school if you had tried to get up to the shops.

Oooh our school dinners were lovely.....chocolate concrete and pink custard was my fave ....oh and spam fritters, chips and beans although not the healthiest!!

Hurlefield Boys '59 to '62, mashed potatoes tasting metallic with long ginger hairs in :gag: most puds were ok and occasionally we had salad and chips which was nice. Whether school dinners were nice or not depended on what they were like at home IMO, mine beat school ones every time.

I remember my first school dinner ever. This was at Nether Green School in the mid-fifties. We had something called 'hash' [a new word to me] followed by treacle tart. This was served on rather faded plastic plates probably in pastel pink, blue, yellow and green.

For school dinners we used to go to the basement of the Methodist Church next door. There were long trestle tables with benches each side and a chair at the top end. There was a kind of mini blackboard on the wall with a hand-written menu in chalk capitals. Mrs Dean was the head dinner lady, a small woman with a high voice who didn't like us coming in too noisily.

Dinners used to arrive in the back of a large grey van with the sign 'School Meals' painted on the side. Somebody I know said they once saw a container of stew [or perhaps I should say 'hash'] fall of the back off the van. The driver scraped it off the road and put it back in the container.

Different teachers had different ways of running things. The fairest one was Mr McGrady, who used to send us up in strict rotation starting with a new table each week. Some seemed only to notice only the children sitting near them - especially the ones who were sitting up straight. Mrs Korklein was a very short lady with very high heels, who was pretty assertive with the senior boys if necessary!

A new head followed Mr Thraves, Mr Simmonds I think. He had great vision to improve the school [including its awful outdoor loos] He wanted meals cooked on the premises. I wasn't sure what 'premises' meant but I thought it might be some kind of round shiny oven - a bit like the containers that brought in the hash I mentioned earlier!

Ah yes, school dinners, served in a prefabricated building ; cold in summer and freezing in winter. Sat at trestle tables on hard benches - Wackford Squeers would have felt at home! Most tasty food was 'Fry up' which basically was yesterday's vegetables mixed up, fried and re-hashed. Delia would know doubt call it by its Sunday name of ' Bubble & Squeak'.
Favourite pudding was Manchester Tart ( yes, as pubescent adolescents we had many a laugh at that!) It consisted of a pastry base with a thin layer of strawberry jam topped with thick custard. Served cold it complemented the surroundings perfectly. All in all though, not bad at a shilling a time.

Hi, I went to High Storrs early 60s could never stomach the dinners as they obviously were cooked by the same person from the boy's school.
always took sandwiches - meant that we could go on the grounds a lot quicker to talk to boys, as you remember we were not allowed to mix to any great degree. Miss Furtado was our headmistress and she had the uncanny knack of seeing you come back into school if you had tried to get up to the shops.

Ms Furtado. I remember her. A perfect counterpart to George Mack, Birds of a feather. If you were caught misbehaving during school dinner, were you made to stand on your seating bench for the rest of the period so that everone could gawk at you? I remember having to do that once. :blush:

Hi rogG, no Miss Furtado had a much better punishment. She used to have us in the office and say how disappointed she was in us. The amount of girls this reduced to tears anyone would have thought that we had received 6 of the best. No physical punishment or public humiliation could have the same effect. She was however a wonderful person and deeply respected, at least by my friends.

Ah yes, school dinners, served in a prefabricated building ; cold in summer and freezing in winter. Sat at trestle tables on hard benches - Wackford Squeers would have felt at home! Most tasty food was 'Fry up' which basically was yesterday's vegetables mixed up, fried and re-hashed. Delia would know doubt call it by its Sunday name of ' Bubble & Squeak'.
Favourite pudding was Manchester Tart ( yes, as pubescent adolescents we had many a laugh at that!) It consisted of a pastry base with a thin layer of strawberry jam topped with thick custard. Served cold it complemented the surroundings perfectly. All in all though, not bad at a shilling a time.

I think the prefabricated buildings that people remember appeared after the war. As far as I know school dinners came along because of the war, it wasn't considered safe for pupils to walk home for dinner as was once the common practice. So school dinners, along with free school milk and hastily erected buildings became part of the post-war deal.

Some of the prefabs are still being used are they not ?

The only thing i ever liked was cheese pie.

The only thing i ever liked was cheese pie.

oooer, I could just eat some now !:love:

The only thing i ever liked was cheese pie.

mmmm, i remember those....lovely

one thing i remember which was horrible was mashed potato, which came looking like a walnut whip with the outside all crunchy. i think it must have been a cheap potato substitute because i love mash but this was horrible.
Also at our junior school there would be a table of eight with three seniors pupils dishing the food to the junior pupils. so unfortunately all the worst food went to the younger pupils with the older ones keeping the good stuff...unfair but a lesson in life i think!!!!

Ours were so bad, six of us used to chip in to buy a bottle of H.P.sauce to disguise the flavour

Say what you will school dinners make you ill
Davey Crocket died of shepherds pie
All school din dins come from pig bins thats no lie.
Any one remember that one

Nobody went to shirecliffe or longley then?the dinners were tailored for the pigs,funny thing is we didnt get any bacon sandwiches,even the smell put me off,I'd rather wakk the two miles to my grandmothers in all weathers than eat the crap they passed off as food.Yeh big grey vans delivered it and they smelled awfull Im sure they sent it from prisons and the drivers had no sense of smell.I think the teachers thought that we would all finish up in Armley anyhow!!!!!!!!!

As far as I can remember the school dinners at King Ted's back in the distant past (60s) were pretty much the same as everywhere... but I thought their chips were absolutely great. One of the dinner ladies there used to give me lots of them once I'd told her that my Mum was a school dinners cook too. Bear in mind that the money that was allowed for school meals worked out at about 1/3d (6p) per pupil per day.

I remeber them as being yummy..which was some time ago.....allthough,i bet by todays standards...they,d be minging if you had one today

The puddings were the best, especially the Manchester tart. I also liked the syrup sponge and the ginger sponge and the chocolate sauce and the pink custard - I think you get the idea. One thing I hated were the spam fritters swimming in oil.

You lot must have iron constitutions or mybe we were at schoolin different decades.

My favourite school dinner at Birley Juniors was chocolate sponge with chocolate custard. Anyone remember the 'beef in gravy' with great gristly lumps which squeaked in your mouth as you struggled to chew them? The cook would be had up for abuse nowadays! I remember once at the infants, Mrs Norton the head teacher said our pudding was to be damson pie, and did anyone know what a damson was? I then woke up from my daydream and my hand shot into the air. "Oh! Miss! Miss! It's like a . . . young girl!!"
I liked all the puddings really, with the exception of Queen of Puddings, which I'm still not that keen on, being too sickly. Anyone remember Mr Gillies slapping a boy's face for swearing at dinner time, then telling him to 'stop roaring'?

I have lived in Birmingham all of my life (so far). I used to love my school dinners. they were great and at the time cost 5/- per week.
The chocolate concrete for pudding always went down well, with beautiful thick custard.
Just for interest, Custard was invented in Birmingham By Alfred Bird.
The Birds Custard factory was a great employer for years in Brum.
The Custard Factory no longer produces custard, it's a media centre. If you watch the Gadget Show on the Telly, that comes from there. :P

Burgoyne Rd school early 1960's, beetroot, chips and cold brisket, the brisket was nearly white it had that much fat in it, yeuch.

I think the prefabricated buildings that people remember appeared after the war. As far as I know school dinners came along because of the war, it wasn't considered safe for pupils to walk home for dinner as was once the common practice. So school dinners, along with free school milk and hastily erected buildings became part of the post-war deal.

a quick history of school meals

School meals were provided as a charitable act from the mid-nineteenth century and expanded after the 1870 Education Act, amid rising concerns about undernourished children. Manchester and Bradford began to provide school meals, and lobbied central government to legislate encouraging other local authorities to follow. The Liberal government elected in 1906 introduced policies dealing with the poor health of Britain's children, with an urgency brought on by fears about the nation's capability for war and colonial conquests. These policies included the 1906 entitlement for local authorities to provide food for poor children. By 1945 1.6 million meals were being provided, 14% free and the rest charged at the cost of ingredients.

School meal provision was made compulsory, by the 1944 Education Act, which made it a statutory duty rather than optional entitlement for local authorities. This was part of the wide political shift of the 1940s under Labour that involved the creation of the welfare state and the NHS. In 1945 school meals were described by the Ministry of Education as having 'a vital place in national policy for nutrition and well-being of children.' A 1999 survey by the Medical Research Council suggested that despite rationing, children in 1950 had healthier diets than their counterparts in the 1990s, with more nutrients and lower levels of fat and sugar. Regulated nutritional standards, having been introduced in 1906, were standardised in 1966.

These provisions were removed by the 1980 Education Act of Margaret Thatcher's government. The act removed the requirement to provide school meals of any nutritional standard and statutory requirement to provide meals other than for eligible children of families on income support.

At Lydgate Lane Juniors and King Teds in the 50's, I found school dinners inedible and either went home for lunch or took sandwiches.