1968: What is the BEST SCHOOL DINNER? | A Quick Look Around | Voice of the People | BBC Archive
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- čas přidán 25. 09. 2022
- Evelyn Elliot quizzes Scottish schoolchildren about their favourite and least favourite school dinners, at a school that clearly has a winning mince and potatoes recipe.
This clip is from A Quick Look Around, originally broadcast 12 January, 1968.
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Potatoes prepared in any and all ways were the staple of all school dinners in the 60`s
Big thanks to all dinner ladies past and present ..... the hidden heroes of the British heart !
Few people realise just how nutritious potatoes can be, as long as you don't over do them!
My mother was a dinner lady for years.
@@marymary5494 Mine too, for 16 years in fact :)
These are Scottish children, mince and potatoes would have been a staple in all homes, warm and filling... and not a drop of Irn Bru to be seen, and no mention of chips, pizza or turkey dinosaurs.
See how grateful all those kids were to get a good cooked meal at school.
And that’s when I went to school in the 1960s, I prayed before my meal I knew my dinner lady and she would give me extra to eat because she knew I came from a poor background and there wasn’t much food at home.
I was also a dinner monitor and helped to set all the tables out.
Not one child said they didn’t let dislike any of the food. They were grateful for every bit of food that got to eat..
60 years later, everybody’s eating poison
Rubbish, they came from the cheapest suppliers they could find.
I started school in 2008 and I had fresh food too, my favourite was the Korma and there was nothing I didn't like
Of course they were grateful, today you dont get, organic food, crockery, healthy local produce. Also you dont get everyone on their phones
The lunch ladies at my school Baked the most delicious bread rolls every day. We'd eat them with the little prewrapped squares of butter. So delicious
Except they aren't. School meals are more nutritionally rich than ever before. Junk food was kicked out by Oliver.
1968 ummm, I was 6 years old and I loved the meals at my school, the bottle of milk also. Ilkeston, Derbyshire a beautiful place, nice memories of that place...
Did u like pizza ? Burgers ? Wings and fries ?
@@MobbingQueen-ty3bh never on our school menu, we had better quality food back then and more nutritious....
It's an interesting feeling to watch this and smile at how cute these kids are, when in actuality they're all older than my mother.
All them children looked like they are at a healthy weight.
They all seemed happy and grateful for their food
I loved my school dinners in the early 70s and 80s. I always had seconds when I could.
More active, less junk food
Can't go wrong with mince and mashed potato; a childhood favourite of mine too!
Corned beef hash with beetroot! What a meal. A bit of brown sauce on the side.
I'm sorry but that is worse than prison food
@@ilovegot7754And you would know because?
@@annkynaston3605 I have read, watched and been told many times prison food is horrible, isn’t this known knowledge
very civilised, actually serving the children at the table with proper plates
@@OlafProtA plastic tray with sections which is what some schools have now.
@@annkynaston3605 They literally just use a long trough now. Or throw the food at the kids
@@johngilmore697 Not in the schools near were I live.
We still had that in the early 90s at my 'posh' school.
@@jonathanlandau-litewski7405 We still had that in my very un-posh school in the 2000s. Has it actually changed, or are people assuming it has?
It seems like yesterday to me. Thank God i had those years.
Left school69 it doesn’t seem like yesterday to me different times different values. I wouldGo back in a heartbeat. I’m sure you would too.
@@thomasreed49 in my mind it seems like yesterday cos i prefer to retreat. Am kind of resigning from the way things are today, feel like a misfit. Yes IF only we could go back eh? I'd strap myself to the undercarriage of the first plane back there lol. X
@@mariar4431 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
Your not a misfit Maria it is the world which has gone potty. X
@@Ridersonthestorm8899 it has indeed.
Christmas school dinner was the best. I'd look forward to it each year lol
They even know how to use a knife and fork properly. 😀
Wow memories
1960
My school dinners were great especially the puddings ❤
Rice pudding
With jam ❤
Fresh milk every morning
Or orange juice ❤
Great teacher
Great schools
Great England ❤❤
Proper teachers
Am from north Newcastle 1960
Golden years back then
Great tv dramas back then
Great flims
Especially British black and white flims ❤
Happiness childhood
We had to sharp our pencil for school
Every morning
Today kids sharpening knifes
Stabbing each other to death every day
Teachings genders
So many???
Broken England sad
Any way we had the best of England ❤❤
1950 /60 /70
I used to love watching a black and white film next to an open fire with my mum on a Saturday afternoon in the 80s. So relaxing.
@@sianiflewog63 yes 19 80
Also great
Still great England
Were the golden years back then 1960 /80
Especially tradition Christmas
Proper winters
And great films
Especially black and white flims also drama
When tv was great
Back then
Today we have thousand of channels
Nothing there.
Now we have thousand of genders
Life totally changed
Good news
U tube
Watch all your past anytime
Mine 1960
Especially black and white flims
Brtish flims
Also best of America flims
Great stars always
Am watching
Fugitive classic drama
1960
David Jason,
Have a lovely life
Enjoy your past.......
Back when the food was cooked on site.
Yes! As soon as we got off the bus every morning we knew we'd be having Brussel sprouts for lunch, the whole area smelled like a rancid fart!
Still is at some schools
Imagine “back when” your parents (2 parents), packed 🫵🏻’re lunch…
@@Buddhavibez Private
Bless...well behaved kiddies
Jam roll poly & Gypsy tart that’s what school dinners were all about
Did he like burgers , fries, chicken wings and pizza ??
Pink custard 👍
Banana custard 👍
Cheese and onion pie🤮
Chocolate cake with chocolate custard 😂
@@taraelizabethdensley9475 I used to mix mine all together into a brown sludge before eating it. Yummy! LOL
@@taraelizabethdensley9475 That was my fave! ;)
Never thought I'd heard a schoolboy say he's quite content with the food
Wdym I’m happy cuz we get pizza
He probably got extra potatoes for saying that
I love kids back in the 60s, so orderly and civilized and no one causing any kind of commotion. Also I love how despite one of the kids admitting he doesn't like the school lunch, he still eats it and doesn't further complain! I remember some children in elementary school when they don't like school lunch either the parents bring lunch for them or they simply eat the dessert!
I don't know how it was in England, but in Canada, we could bag lunch if we wanted (meaning pack a lunch from home)
What’s wrong about the parents making lunch for them? As long as they aren’t eating unhealthily then I see nothing wrong with them eating something they actually like. And some kids would of had sensitivity to certain textures and tastes, even in the 60s, which would of made it pretty much impossible for them to eat certain foods without throwing up.
Only in America
Back when one had to wear a coat to eat dinner - no heating in the dinner room!
If You didn't wear Your coat,someone would hide it....
At last! Someone who's a bit more down to earth. Wasn't fun being child minded at a home heated by a few stinking, free-standing parafin heaters and an external toilet (central heating was a luxury).!
Those kids are so cute and precious. I wonder where they all are now 🤔
So bloody grateful to get a decent meal with some meat!
how can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?
You can easily have a decent meal without meat
Shout out to that one black kid braving the cold in 1960s Scotland
I still have nightmares about the mince and potatoes served at school during the 70s.
Mashed potato in the 80s was awful 🤮
My memories of primary school dinners include the scariest of all the teachers on duty in the dinner hall and her arms suddenly swooping past either side of your head, snatching your cutlery out of your hands, and swiftly cutting up all the food on your plate. I hated that, I was perfectly capable of cutting it up myself. She would also stand by the hatch where we were to scrape our plates and stack them up neatly, and would send us back to sit down if she thought we hadn't eaten enough. I think I was in about P3 when school dinners changed from the traditional meat and two veg to a "cafeteria" style. After that I only had a plate of chips every day. At high school there was a fantastic broccoli quiche on the menu most days, but the absolute highlight was what was called "fudge", but it was a triangle of traybake of the digestive/butter/syrup/chocolate style, and it was the most delicious thing ever. Some people had it with custard, but I preferred it on its own
I remember those chocolate square thingies, they were heavenly but they never gave them to us with custard. I used to live for chocolate sponge with chocolate custard though!
@@ModeMan101 me too. Sometimes they had strawberry custard. I'd go up for thirds.
@@evangelesong6319 I remember at primary school a ladle of custard was 2p. I never had it. The strange combination of a scoop of ice cream ("pink or brown?") with a ladle of hot custard over the top was very popular
Pink custard and some kind of sponge with hundreds and thousands and icing 😬😬
I got bummed
Ah yes school dinners! Brings back my '70s childhood school days memories. As soon as we got off the bus morning we could always tell if we'd be having Brussel sprouts for lunch, the whole area smelled like a rancid fart!
Lol 😂
I’ve worked in many types of schools, last 23 years in a private school. In the staff room there’s a list of allergies for specific pupils - the 2 that make me laugh are ‘lobster’ and ‘shellfish’ - because they’re obviously going to have those on the lunchtime menu 😂
beautiful children - bless them all (except for that bloke who looked about 30)
🤣
I was one of the few that actually liked semolina pudding, or frog spawn as it was known...
Frog spawn was Tapioca not semolina!
@@Essemm52 Ha! Quite right Ess - my memory is missing a few neurons these days...
🤣 Oh my! Frog spawn. Yeah!
Mince and potatoes was popular, can't blame them.
Cooked school meals didn't happen in my part of Ireland in the '70s and '80s. Not sure if they even do it now.
We did get a carton of milk though.
thank you for these videosss
Roast dinners were gert lush and we ate our greens because Popeye did. The cooks made apple pie by picking from the fruit trees on the playground. Jumpers for goal posts.....
All comes flooding back doesn't it. The glory days.
The greatest school dinners is ravioli and chips and also that restaurant club in London in the 80s and 90s.
No mate it’s pizza and chips
I was in primary school from the mid 80s. The food from what I remember was ok. Plate pies, scampi, chicken/curry, the odd pasta dish and fish with mash potatoes on Friday. We would get steamed puddings on Thursdays and its nickname was ‘Matrons Bosoms’. I don’t think we knew what that meant then 😄
@2:04 I love how she was caught by surprise lol
Why did this ever stop. It was such an important part of school life. I loved school dinners for the most part. Look at these appreciative, well mannered children. Prayers of gratitude before eating. It's all gone. So sad.
Mince in gravy and mashed potatoes were quite good actually. I used to hate anything with tomatoes. Sometimes we'd get a piece of chicken or pork chop with a huge tinned tomato, yuck. Ravioli in tomato sauce was horrible, and the beef and barley soup was like dirty dishwater. I didn't mind semolina with a blob of jam on the top though.
They all look so healthy
It's all that running about after school. Video games hour after hour make big waists.
The generation of kids who smoked and drank more alcahol than kids today. If you're pointing out the fact they are slim... Well they wasn't healthy
@@felicitybywater8012 Not really. A healthy diet is just as important as exercise, plenty of people play games and are healthy.
they just ate fewer calories than we do today, although when they were a bit older I bet lots were drinking and smoking too much, people looked old for their age in the 60s and 70s
Back and white plus old camera makes everyone look better than real life 🤭
1968: Here you see school children are, quite literally, served a full meal with a variety of nutritious vegetables at lunch time. Free meals were readily available to those who couldn't afford them.
2022: "Children are so hungry that they are eating rubbers or hiding in the playground because they can’t afford lunch, according to reports from headteachers across England."
Those would be the same headteachers who are constantly after extra funding from the taxpayer then.
@@andrewkitchenuk yes... obviously if schools are underfunded, they need more money. And money for state schools comes from taxes, like every other public service. What are you saying, that schools are overfunded?! that's a new one
Plus there was milk and a biscuit in the morning. A half pint bottle for every child - cold in winter, warm in summer!
Progress...?
@@snowdog9954 Warm - pretty disgusting some times to be honest - LOL.
Always loved the stews and favourite dessert was chocolate crumble with peppermint custard 😋😋
I could never work out why our mashed potatoes always looked like footballs….🤔🤣🤣🤣🙄🤣
Scooped up with around ice cream scoopah
@@susiefairfield7218 …yh I know that now….but at the time I couldn’t work out why mum couldn’t make mash footballs at home….🤔🙄😆🤣🤣🤣🤣
I think it was smash with an ice-cream scoop
I was thinking for a Kiwi I didn't do too bad understanding the English accents then I looked to see what area they were from and saw they were Scottish. Now I feel stupid!
I had no any trouble with the accents. My grandparents were Scots.. Mind, I've a wee bit of trouble w some Kiwi accents sometimes. But only a wee bit w how many Kiwis there are on this side of the ditch ❤️
Another kiwi here; the only word I mishead was the girl who said "soup", which I heard as "soap"!
Don’t worry. I’m Scottish living in New Zealand and even I was unsure what accent it was. At first I thought English too.
Good ol' food.
Only thing I hated in primary school was liver. That and the bottle of milk in the morning with the cream around the top. One taste of that and I was done.
whole milk is the good stuff. them gold and silver tops. the only way to have milk that tasted like it did back then is to buy whole organic.
I could deal with the milk as long as it wasn't left near the radiator but the liver made me retch and gag.
I hated luke warm milk, it was ghastly, I always had fruit juice, water or weak tea at home and tepid milk at primary school was ick!
This has got me wondering, at what point did it become "normal" to have to almost force feed children vegetables? Most of the kids here say they actually like their veggies but certainly many of the lads I went to school with (25 years later) would have a hissy fit if anything green or vegetable-like was even presented to them!
The kids were happy just to be eating a hot meal, the veg was a great bonus. In the UK of the 70's, it wasn't the richest time to live. Farmers were having a hard time, with higher prices for gas, seed, and feed. This is while not being able to get big loans, because their properties weren't worth as much as they were before. So food prices were up, with a hurting economy. Also there wasn't a bunch of processed crap, readily available to them, at the time.
Because back then you ate what you were served or went without (at home). There were no options to sulk and cry until you got what you wanted. At school, everyone was given the same thing also. We ate healthily back then. No fast food. Fussy eating was not tolerated.
Them days ❤❤
Love that's it's all kid's voices and then Ally McCoist turns up at 2:20
Good old school dinner's ,loved the, jam roly poly, treacle pudding. Yum.
The children are very sweet and well behaved. It is a great thing that Britain fed the kids a decent school lunch and they still do I believe. Although I think appetites have changed and there are more fussy eaters now wanting only chips and sweets perhaps.
If anything the quality is an insult to the growing minds it aims to nourish. If school dinners were proper meals prepared fresh the kids would eat them, they've resorted to sweets and chips because no one cares to feed them properly at home, no one cares to feed them properly at school so they don't care about feeding themselves properly.
Sandra, no they don’t anymore and it’s really quite sad, feels as if we’ve gone backwards. The kids get to choose and every time choose rubbish, sponsored by and fuelled by food companies wanting to sell their crap to the nations schools. Anyone who turns around and says “they won’t eat it if they don’t get to choose it” or “kids don’t want that” would do well to watch this clip, happy smiling faces and very few complaints. Couldn’t afford to be fussy and their parents were probably bloody grateful for their kids being given a decent meal, unlike today they’d probably complain!
Meat and potatoes sounds a lot better then what i got for lunch (im 24). We had spaghetti that would congeal into one block of pasta most days.
Potato potato potato
School dinners where really good today most schools serve kids junk food.
State school dinners - Remember the smell of the mashed potato, the gravy, the peas, the liver sausage on salad day - the chocolate cake with chocolate custard - semolina pudding with a shortcake biscuit and that red sauce ! - I could go on and on! Nothing like it these days. Just junk food that they have to pay for and monster energy drinks.
My favourite school dinner used to be 5 pints of Stella and a kebab
Ha ha ha followed by a cigarette
Dear BBC Archives Team, please add some decent Closed captions on your fairly fascinating videos. Thank you!
We didn't have plates we had trays.
1980s in Anglesey, my favourite was chicken pie with mash.
With mash get smash, I had that at school 😬😬😬😬
I agree with the little girl who doesn't like turnips!
i would love to work in a school kitchen as the boss though , when it comes to making yummy food in bulk i got it covered , my pies are to die for , lol
Mince and Tatties.
Yum.
I love how it says 'Translate to English' after your reply!!!
My school dinners in the 80s and 90s were truly revolting, spam, tepid water served in scratched silver jugs and plastic cups, or squash, lumpy mash and beans, soggy chips and overcooked veg. I couldn't stick them long and took a packed lunch, or went home for dinner, in my teens I started eating food from Holland and Barretts health food shop, Marks and Spencers, healthy things like salad, soup, fresh fruit, wholemeal sandwiches, etc.
I guess the kids in this clip were used to potatoes and mince, cabbage, etc, different times and different upbringing I guess.
I see the mince and potatoes was popular 💕 Proper good hearty food
Yep, heart attack capital of Europe.
potatoes are still my favourite
Mince and Tatties was my favourite. We never called it Mince & Potatoes. They were probably told to speak “properly”. I was 7 at the time in Dundee, so this is my generation. We had sponge and custard for pudding, followed by games in the playground. None of the so called healthy foods followed by playing with your phone like today.
Potato 🥔🤣🤣🤣
What beautifully dressed and well spoken these children are. Why is this so hard now? There was so much more poverty back then but people overcame.
Those kids were so humble and praying before eating, wow. How far we've fallen.
😆
Speaking to sky daddy is a risk mitigation tactic.
@@pqlasmdhryeiw8please be respectful about other people’s religions.
Because those schools used to be run by the Parish, not state. It was mandatory. Now we let children practice religion without force
Because they would be beaten if they didn't or they would get ra pe d
Primary school dinners were horrendous in the 60's! I remember the mashed potato with fondness! Everywhere smelled of fish! 😂🤘😎
There was something profoundly moving watching children pray and being thankful (and gracious) for what little they had - no hint of entitlement. So called “progressivism” has a lot to answer for.
They were praying because they were told to pray, zero choice - no praying, no food .
@@bordersw1239 I am sorry you experienced such manipulation.
Was there ever a vote for semolina & prunes?
Gad, mandatory prayer as late as 1968? I had no idea....
Still a rule. Search "daily collective worship". Surprised it wasn't tidied away years ago...
What school was this?
My junior school food in the 70's was amazing -- I am not sure why some boys decided to burn down the school kitchens one Sunday afternoon in 1973?? My infant school dinners in late 60's were ruined by awful gravy and a lady would come around and smack you on the hand if you did not finish it!!! Awful time.
I like non gluten, vegan, non lactose and low fructose. And no beans for me, my mum says I'm allergic to beans, and peas, and Brussels, and...oh yes, and I like tofu. I'm a little boy growing up in the 20s - of the 21st century.
Most of my lunch up to the 6th grade I would say 90 percent of time I tossed into a trash bin.
Sounds American as it was year and dinner and rubbish in the U.K.
Not in my school in the 60s you wouldn't, you'd be forced to eat it or given the strap across your hand.
No fish n chips & finger sandwiches …?
Before mass immigration our country was amazing
Nearly all of them were happy with the food because almost all of them eat it at hame but the biggest factor was those who didn’t have any at hame! Or all the teachers bribed them to say it was braw with free jelly and ice cream hahah😂
Didn't hear anyone mention chips - unlike today!
Have to say, those dinners look better than the disgusting junk we got, especially after going to secondary school
Christ no ,not heart or battered liver / battered spam.
Would go truant on such days to the chippy.
these days chips, chips and chips
The days before Fast Food and kids were less fussy
My mum was school age during the 60s and all she remembers is lumpy mash, liver and bacon and steak and kidney pudding with more kidney than steak… This made her go vegetarian 40 years ago 😅
Should be compulsory school viewing for kids today! No fads back then - you ate the dinner because you appreciated a hot meal in the middle of a cold day!
"No fads back then" - 1968 was full of fads.
prob curry now bro
1970s and 1980s schools dinners...primary school worst dinner was the salad which was polluted with beetroot and the horrible juice all over so you couldnt even eat the uncontaminated bits. Yuck.
Bring,back,the,small,bottles,,milk,for,primary,schools
I loved the milk at school, oh and to be 'milk monitor' for a week and hand out the paper straws (the power!). Just remembered the strawberry milkshake we'd have once or twice a year in summer for dessert, make with that powered stuff.
Did people not used to bring packed lunch in the 60s? I remember when I went to school in Scotland I brought packed lunch 95% of the time. I just didn’t like any of the food they had. They never had something simple, everything just had way too much going on. Way too many vegetables.
Today its all pre-prepared cheap junk nowadays. Don't blame anyone but the group of people Briton surrendered it's finances to.
The one black kid must have had it rough😂
They didn't, not in my experience and I started secondary comp as the local borstal closed: record 'remedial' stream.
Most classes had a non-white kid in who got no worse treatment (nor reciprocated any less) than eg gingers, bloaters, or flids. Apologies for 70s vernacular - some things really have changed for the better.
Had one in my class - still remember her nickname ‘Roly Poly’. No idea why she was called that, she was a refugee from Uganda, never remember her being picked on though - everyone had nicknames.
Real plates. Not those awful plastic trays
They all like meat and potatoes. These days the reply would be chips, pizza, chicken dippers. Any thing quick and mass produced in a factory with no nutritional value. Can't have chocolate bars though, they are classed as unhealthy!!
Look! Britain used to be a Christian country back then!
Aye. Raised a country of racists and homophobes. All in the name of Sky Daddy.
Thank God people got educated and became atheists.
@@billyalexander5645 even us atheists had to go to the local C of E school.
@@billyalexander5645 "Thank God" lol
Boomers still love this tat even today,
Kids wasting food anyway.
Now their parents go to food banks.
Dinner is at night lunch is in the afternoon 😂wtf is wrong with you people seriously
Little angels they are.
Definitely, especially compared with children these days