Family credit & free school meals in the 1980s

[Clarissatheclown]

NC as I’m trying to work out things from my childhood, so may be outing later.

If your family (single parent) received family credit and you received free school meals at primary school in the early-mid 1980s, would you have been considered ‘poor’ as viewed from the standards at the time?

Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences. It all does ring a bell, especially the token. I got a school uniform grant thing as well. I started thinking about school meals with all the talk about them recently, and some vague memories got stirred. DM confirmed that I was on FSM, and that my best friend's mum got the hump about it as DM only had me, but BF’s mum had 6 kids and didn’t get it and she thought it was really unfair.
Anyway, it’s just weird as I remember we were poor, DM earned a pittance working for the council, but I didn’t think we were that poor at the time. But looking back I think we must have been. It definitely spurred me on to never want to rely on benefits as they always seemed really unreliable, something always changed (my father wriggled out of paying any maintenance), and I wanted to be in control of my own money. Fortunately I’m comfortable now so it worked!

@Suzysleep I was only primary school age so memories are hazy but I do remember income support as I remember being told off for talking about it in public as my mum was ashamed. it is awful that years later the stigma hasn’t changed really.

Honestly I have no idea.

In the early 90s my dad was out of work, I know we couldn’t afford new clothes but it was fun to get clothes from the Brownies jumble sale! I didn’t know until early this year (I’m 37 now) that we were close to having the house repossessed and in fact my dads car was repossessed. I suspect we had free school meals but I honestly don’t know.

I had fsm in the late seventies at primary. Names were called and people went up to give their "dinner money". My name was skipped over but it was evident to others in the class that I never went up to pay.

At secondary there was a separate queue for tickets that by my second year I found so mortifying that I went a whole year without lunch rather than participate.

When the tokens were introduced it was also embarrassing and as pp said you couldn't get much at all.

A lot of my classmates were deeply affected by the miners' strike and I remember them having a new understanding of what it was to be poor.

Now I live in a London Borough that provides fsm to all its primary children which I think is amazing and really does help to destigmatise it. My DD's school goes to great lengths to ensure children are not singled out for being poor.

Also like pp it's had a big effect on me and I have a horror of being poor that has driven me as an adult. I don't think the memory of that stigma ever leaves you.