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The school had a cafeteria where we had our dinner (lunch). We all brought our money on Monday. We boys had pockets, the girls were less advantaged--no pockets in their dresses. So many carried little purses. The weekly cost was six shillings! My Mum always wrapped ours up in a hankercheif - two half-crowns and a shilling - and then made us tuck it into the inside pocket of our blazers. That usually worked fine. I vividly recall, however, that once it didn't. I lost mine once after playing on the way to school and when the school secretary came to collect the money I panicked and was inconsolable. My teacher made me turn out all of my pockets and my satchell too but I knew that the money had been in my blazer. I thought that I wouldn't be able to have dinner for a week - and I daredn't tell my Mum as six shillings seemed a fortune then.
The school had a cafeteria where we had our dinner (lunch).
We all brought our money on Monday. We boys had pockets, the girls were less advantaged--no pockets in their dresses. So many carried little purses. The weekly cost was 6 shillings! My Mum always wrapped ours up in a hankercheif - 2 half-crowns and a shilling - and then made us tuck it into the inside pocket of our blazers. That usually worked fine.
I vividly recall, however, that once Mum's precautions didn't work. I lost mine once after playing on the way to school and when the school secretary came to collect the money I panicked and was inconsolable. My teacher made me turn out all of my pockets and my satchell too but I knew that the money had been in my blazer. I thought that I wouldn't be able to have dinner for a week - and I daredn't tell my Mum as six shillings seemed a fortune then. I did get dinner of course and the teacher wrote a note to take home to Mum.
You wouldn't believe this but I retraced my footsteps on the way home and there - right near the duckpond where I'd been playing with a friend 7 hours earlier was my white hanky with the money still inside!
I still gave the note to my Mum as you did then and she wasn't sure whether to spank me for losing the money or praise me for finding it again so she did a bit of both and gave me a note explaining to the teacher. Anyway my Mum would have found another 6 shillings if necessary. She had a pot on the mantleshelf for emergencies but I would have felt bad about losing it. From then on she used to fix the hanky with the money inside the pocket with a safety pin, which I always managed to prick myself with when I was trying to get the money out so it wasn't very safe for me!
I was quite proud when I went down to the school office the next day and handed over the money as I told them I'd found it in the park - but the secretary said it had probably been in my satchel all of the time which annoyed me as she was more or less accusing me of lying - which was also a major crime when I was at school.
Anyway - that's that - the school would never have let anyone go hungry even if they didn't have the money and these days there are free meals for those who need them anyway and they don't collect dinner money in class as it would make those on free dinners stand out. I don't see why being poor should be shameful - but kids can be nasty sometimes.
At my secondary school my Mum had to pay up front for dinners for a whole term in advance.That really was a struggle to find and then you had tickets for each day. The food at secondary school was never as good as at primary school, but I suppose that's to do with larger scale cooking and it being a different type of school. Anyway - I could go about school dinners for ages but it's not about clothing (well some is given the spills and occaisional food fights and so on!) School dinners are a hot topic (if you'll pardon the phrase) here now as they're trying to improve them. They should ask my old primary school dinner ladies about that! I don't think we appreciated the ladies at the time, but actually they did a wonderful job.
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