School Milk Scheme 1982

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truthseeker

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Does anyone remember when this was brought in?

Talked it over with a couple of friends last night and all our memories of it are of cartons of milk left lying in warm places and tasting warm and slightly gone off - all from different schools - was wondering what other peoples experiences were?
 
I remember, warm milk and horrible brown bread and corned beef sandwiches that nobody ever ate on a wednesday and a Friday - I wouldn't have drank milk if you'd paid me when I was in school anyway. I do however remember a couple of the poorer kids in the class hanging around after school on a Friday waiting until everybody left so that they could take home the milk and sandwiches :(
 
Not sure when it started but I remember our school winning a Milk Cooler because of our above average consumption - Gerry Loftus came to present it !
 
Yep, tiny cartons of milk left lying out in the sun on the classroom sink, not allowed touch them til lunchtime by which time they were all warm and yucky. What was the point of doing that?
 
Ah - them were the days. Tepid quarter (?) pint bottles (I don't remember cartons*) of milk and gank white bread sambos with margarine and jam or corned beef. I think it put me off drinking milk alone for life. Wednesday ("bun day") and the nice soft currant buns were always eagerly anticipated though. :)

* Were there ever "pyramid" shaped TetraPak style cartons at some stage or am I thinking of the orange "juice" that was sold in those receptacles in the 70s?

Update: hang on the thread title and a quick Google suggests that the scheme was brought in during 1982. But I'm talking about the early 70s! :eek:
 
ClubMan said:
Ah - them were the days. Tepid quarter (?) pint bottles (I don't remember cartons*) of milk and gank white bread sambos with margarine and jam or corned beef. I think it put me off drinking milk alone for life. Wednesday ("bun day") and the nice soft currant buns were always eagerly anticipated though. :)

* Were there ever "pyramid" shaped TetraPak style cartons at some stage or am I thinking of the orange "juice" that was sold in those receptacles in the 70s?
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I forgot all about the buns, they were on a Friday as well we all ate them just not the sambos
 
Id forgotten the horrible corned beef sambos!!!!
and the currant buns!!!! i hate currants - wonder if thats why!!

I remember quarter pint cartons, and exactly like snuffle says, left in the sun and not allowed to touch them til lunchtime. Looks like a lot of schools had similiar 'lack of refrigeration' problems!!!
 
Was this all only for primary schools? I was in secondary school by 1982 - certainly don't remember anything about this.
 
Primary only as far as I know. That's where I remember it in the 70s anyway.
 
I can only remember it in Primary - and also only in the first primary I was in, we moved house and I changed school at 10 and the new primary didnt have it - but it was outside of Dublin so perhaps that made a difference at the time?
 
We had cheese sandwiches one day, corn beef two days and bun days were wednesday and Friday. Very few people ate the sandwiches but we always ran out of buns so you had to scramble for them! The milk was always manky.
 
Cahir said:
We had cheese sandwiches one day, corn beef two days and bun days were wednesday and Friday. Very few people ate the sandwiches but we always ran out of buns so you had to scramble for them! The milk was always manky.
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I always remember our milk never had straws and most of the cartons had been pecked at by the birds when the milk was left outside school door early in the morning!
 
ney001 said:
I always remember our milk never had straws and most of the cartons had been pecked at by the birds when the milk was left outside school door early in the morning!
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Yes, forgot about that! no straws, so you either pierced the little foil hole and tried to somehow vacuum the milk out, or you opened the side and ended up with milk all down your jumper, plus the resulting vomit-inducing smell until you could get home and wash the horrible milk out of your jumper.

What's all this about sandwiches and buns though? did some schools provide these too? With us it was only milk provided, and bring your own lunch (although they were never much better than the sandwiches discribed above - some unfortunate would have egg salad sandwiches thinking they were posh, and the foul odour emitting when the lunchbox was opened....urgh).

Ah, the days of jam sandwiches and warm milk.
 
Yes, Clubman I remember the pyramid shaped TetraPak; milk was sold in them for a while - they were dreadful to open!

We never got the milk in school though; I think it was up to the school to particpate in the scheme?
 
Used to get a cup of milk & a quarter of a bun in primary school - used only be dished out up to 1st class me thinks.

In secondary school it was brought in again in the early eighties sometime. We used to get milk in plastic cartons which had these foil lids (like you get with cartons of cream).. & a straw. Didn't last to long though after someone had a carton of milk 'fall' & pour all over their head from 2 flights of stairs upwards!
 
Yes I now remember this. We had red and white tetra packs of warm milk.

Anyone know why they did this? Was it to get rid of the EEC milk lakes (as opposed to the butter mountains) that they had at the time?
 
Probably not much help, but in the mid 60's :)eek: ) in Glasgow, we used to get a 1/3rd pint bottle of milk free, and we could buy digestive biscuits for a penny each. We got these at morning break, not lunchtime, and the milk was as cold as the classroom.
Anyone who had sambos would probably have been mugged for them!

The much-loved Mrs Thatcher did away with this outrageous act of generosity & concern for child welfare when she was Minister for Health, sometime in the 70's, I believe.
 
Jock04 said:
Probably not much help, but in the mid 60's :)eek: ) in Glasgow, we used to get a 1/3rd pint bottle of milk free, and we could buy digestive biscuits for a penny each. We got these at morning break, not lunchtime, and the milk was as cold as the classroom.
Anyone who had sambos would probably have been mugged for them!
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Hah!... Milk AND digestive biscuits!.... well you were lucky
 
In 1979 I think - Milk Snatcher Thatcher (unsurprisingly) I believe was the refrain of the day.

EDIT: Just checked; it was actually 1971!! Harold Wilson had previously ended free school milk to secondary schools in 1968 it seems.
 
ClubMan said:
* Were there ever "pyramid" shaped TetraPak style cartons at some stage or am I thinking of the orange "juice" that was sold in those receptacles in the 70s?:eek:
Click to expand...

I have a notion these orange drinks were called "wigwams" and we used to freeze them in the summer?
 
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