school milk

[Mulletino]

Re: school milk

I was once milk monitor - then there was THATCHER.

Thatcher! Thatcher! The school milk snatcher!

I quite liked School Milk, it was in bottles when I had it. They trialled Goat's Milk one day, that was horrible.

[battyrat]

Re: school milk

Thatcher is probably the reason only the first couple of years got milk at my primary. I can only remember getting it up till the time I turned about 7.
Funny thing is I have some vague memory of some kids crying because a couple of kids in the class got milk and they did not. Have a feeling that these kids were eventually taken out of class to have their milk as not to cause a riot. It's probable the kids that got it then were still at the age they would of been given it by a few weeks or months.
Not long back someone pulling the hedge from their front garden near my old primary school found a hoard of one third pint bottles under their hedge.

[Arran]

Re: school milk

I don't understand all this business about Thatcher! Thatcher! The school milk snatcher!

They had milk at primary schools in my locality for kids from nursery to Y2 back in the 1990s after Thatcher had departed as PM. I can remember kids wanting to know why milk wasn't available for them in Y3 to Y6 - something to do with subsidies - but I can't recall Thatcher and milk used together in the same sentence until several years after I had finished primary school.

The milk was always served at morning break. Milk monitors were responsible for carrying the crates of bottles from the front door to the classrooms and they were always Y5 or Y6 kids so they officially were not allowed to drink any of the milk.

[teepee]

Re: school milk

I remember hating school milk as it was not kept refrigerated and so was rarely cold, and also because it was pasteurised, which we never drank at home - in Birmingham in the 1960s almost everyone favoured sterilised milk ('sterra' as we called it).

[Richard1978]

Re: school milk

I don't understand all this business about Thatcher! Thatcher! The school milk snatcher!

They had milk at primary schools in my locality for kids from nursery to Y2 back in the 1990s after Thatcher had departed as PM. I can remember kids wanting to know why milk wasn't available for them in Y3 to Y6 - something to do with subsidies - but I can't recall Thatcher and milk used together in the same sentence until several years after I had finished primary school.

The milk was always served at morning break. Milk monitors were responsible for carrying the crates of bottles from the front door to the classrooms and they were always Y5 or Y6 kids so they officially were not allowed to drink any of the milk.

IIRC the term dates back to the early 1970s when she was health minister & discontinued daily free milk in all schools, but some managed to carry this on.

My primary school only had it 1-2 a month with school dinners in the early 1980s.

I can remember sterilised milk in supermarkets when it was young, & wondered my Mum never bought it.

[teepee]

Re: school milk

IIRC the term dates back to the early 1970s when she was health minister & discontinued daily free milk in all schools, but some managed to carry this on.

I looked this up as I couldn't quite remember the whole story. In 1968 the Wilson Labour government discontinued free school milk for secondary pupils. In 1970 Thatcher became education Top Banana under Heath. In 1971, under pressure to make budget cuts, it was proposed to discontinue free milk for junior (7+) pupils, but keep it for infants.

[Arran]

Re: school milk

LEAs supplied milk to primary schools rather than central government so any that was free for kids was paid for out of the LEAs own budget. What happened was something along the lines that Thatcher gave LEAs the options to provide free milk, charge parents for milk, or discontinue providing milk. I can vaguely remember back in primary school that many parents were chuffed that the LEA still provided milk although they had to pay a few pounds every term for it after nursery. This implied that milk was not available to kids in other LEAs.

The interesting thing was that none of the parents back then ever seemed concerned that the milk was full fat rather than semi-skimmed. They were more concerned with the fact that kids got milk in the first place. I have wondered if many parents nowadays would get uptight if schools changed from semi-skimmed back to full fat milk.

[Arran]

Re: school milk

A friend sent me a lovely photo of his class at primary school in Whitechapel back in the early 1980s when ILEA provided kids with free milk. The school is about half a mile from Tower Bridge.