Milk snatcher Thatcher

[PerfectYear321]

I'm on a bit of a high with the change of government and am looking back at my childhood to see what Labour governments did for my childhood as a poor, free school meals child.

I googled when the Tories got rid of milk for infant school kids and was shocked to find out it was 1971, seeing as I was born in 1977 🤔

I swear I had milk at school in the 80s: little glass bottles with a slim straw. Never drank milk at home but happily drank the milk the school gave me to enjoy with my friends. Am I tripping?!

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/margaret-thatcher-regretted-snatching-milk-from-school-children-for-two-decades-a7500171.html

Never mind the vile milk in the 80's what about the horrible tracing paper toilet rolls... Can anyone remember those?? I swear they had the councils name stamped on it as well. Or was that just my poor inner london school that had this.

It was everywhere. Horrendous stuff. Remember pulling off sheets and sheets to be able to crush it up to increase the absorbency so it stood some chance of doing the needful. You're right too about the print: they had Property of the Queen or something v similar on the tracing paper loo paper in Windsor Castle's visitor loos .

Because she was in cabinet before she was PM. She scrapped milk for junior children when she was Education secretary.

Later the EEC provided funding for junior kids. Those pesky Europeans.

I was born in 1971 and had milk at Juniour school.
I hated it, it was always warm having sat outside since 5am and I still can't drink milk on its own now.
As it was the 70's you didn't get to refuse to eat/drink things and I used to dread being forced to drink it until my Mum eventually put a stop to it.

People may have hated it but it gave calcium to a lot of children who needed it.

It wasn't always warm - we don't live in Spain! I distinctly remember that sometimes it was freezing!

I had milk in primary school in early 90s.

There was school milk at the London Primary School where I taught in the 80s, I expect ILEA paid for it. When I moved North in 1987 there was no milk but it was eventually reintroduced for Under 5s in Nursery Classes, presumably paid for by the LEA.

Hello, yes. Free school milk for reception children was still a thing until fairly recently. Certainly within the last ten years.

I was telling the kids about this stuff the other day. They were complains about school loo roll not being as nice as the home stuff.

It would depend if your Local Education Authority (almost a thing of the past) or Academy were prepared to pay for it. It was only for Nursery Classes/Schools in my area. I've been retired for 10 years but I doubt if it has changed. Before Thatcher was Education Secretary it was everywhere including Secondary schools but it isn't now

We had it for my first two years of primary school (guess that would have been 1979-80), I think. I hate milk (god knows how I got through being a baby), it makes me retch. I was forced to drink it at primary school. I will be eternally grateful to Thatcher for abolishing it and making my school experience a lot happier.

I had milk I was born in 1972. I took milk money in but can't remember what year it was. I liked the milk but not the boiled bacon and pease pudding 🤢

I will be eternally grateful to Thatcher for abolishing it

So fuck the children that actually needed it to supplement their diet. The school could have let you off drinking it and given the spares to hungrier, needier children - but no just ban it all.

I really wish my school had given my milk to other children. I wonder why they didn't. Instead I was made to stand at the front of class until I finished the bottle, milk makes me feel sick every since.

I wish they had had your common sense and just stopped giving it to me. I mean that sincerely by the way.

As per my post and @MrsLeonFarrell
Not eating/drinking things at a lot of schools in the 70's was not an option.
DH came to The UK at 9 and vividly remembers throwing up after being made to eat some nasty tomato soup at school.
I remember hiding things in my pockets or chucking it behind a radiator in the dining room as you were made to sit and look at your uneaten food as it got colder and more disgusting by the second

I'm so glad we don't do that any more

I can't stand milk after being forced to drink it from little glass bottles that had been left in a crate in the sun 🤮 That would have been mid to late 70s.

I had it at school in the 60s and among the many, many reasons I loathe Thatcher, getting rid of school milk doesn't figure. As others have said it was foul and often undrinkable, frozen in winter and "turned" in summer as the crates were kept outside all year round. I imagine it was thought a good idea when introduced just after the War, to enhance the health of the nation.

Wasn't that appalling loo paper Izal? I remember the rolls but it was sort of "dispensed" from something too.

ETA, I imagine they put generations off milk for life.

"You mean Baroness Thatcher who sold off the council houses and didn't build anymore causing the housing shortage we have today? Baroness Thatcher, who sold off all the national utilities in order to make a couple of quid and left us with the absolute mess they're all in today?"
@CaptainOliviaBenson
Yes - I think many of the problems of today started with her policies especially in the North with her personal vendetta against the miners.

Or Thatcher the worst PM we had until Johnson and Truss took the crowns. She who closed all the pits without providing new employment for 1000s of people decimating whole towns for generations. And sold off all the council stock without replacing resulting in the terrible housing crisis we now face.

We had milk when I was at primary from 1996 onwards.

Well they didn't do that. I was forced to drink it till I was sick. So, yes, I was delighted when that no longer happened.

Oh, and my parents actually asked the school for me not to be given the milk. But, no, I had to have it.

God I hated those little warm bottles of milk. Hated the woman who took them away more.
At one of the museums in Newcastle there's a video of the history of the miners strike and, without exception, there's always a loud enthusiastic 'booo' when Thatcher is shown.

The milk snatcher reference was to changing the policy and therefore not having it for free over the age of seven. I remember having to take "milk money" into school in one of my grandads old Tobacco tins every week. I still remember the lovely smell of the tin. 😂

The whole idea of free milk for children was due to post WW2 malnutrition due to rationing, looking back it seems strange to have such a reputation from stopping something nearly 30 years later.