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

Urgh school milk 🤮 I find the taste of milk disgusting and had to drink it holding my nose so as not to gag. And it was often warm.

I had it until I left juniors in 1977.

Isn't there some evidence that the rate of osteoporosis and/or low vit d rates have gone up since the withdrawal of free school milk? I may have dreamt that though.....

But taking it away from every child in the country because you didn't like it is an extreme response. I didn't like it either BTW.

Child of the 60s, school milk in those little bottles with a straw. We also had a tuck shop during first playtime (as it was called back then). The memories!

@spidey66 I had school milk in the 60s and a very good diet. I have rank osteoporosis.

I didn't mind the school milk because I liked milk. My DS started school in the late 90s. Milk was available but parents paid. I had no problem with that. What I had a problem with was the teacher refusing to allow my ds to have a water bottle in a heatwave because he was a milk child and if he didn't drink his milk, it was wasteful. Zero comprehension that as I paid for it, it was my call if it got wasted. If a milk child wanted milk they had to queue at the communal water fountain, in the heat, and the dinner lady let them drink to the count of five. Batshit behaviour over a non issue.

By the time dd started, there had been a change of head, the nonsense stopped and all children were allowed water and the emphasis switched to fruit rather than milk.

It will have probably stopped some children from getting rickets when it was first brought in.
If you were a school-teacher or a school secretary how much time would you think reasonable to devote every day to catering for every child's whim. "Please miss, I don't want my milk today." "Please miss, let me jump on the band-wagon. I don't want mine today but I might feel like it tomorrow, so don't cancel the order." "Audrey, how many pints of tax-payers' milk did we pour down the drain today?"

I started school in 1987 and remember milk being given in infants.

I think it was about 1973 when to have school milk you had to bring in 10p a week. Unlike with school dinners where you could bring it in a day late if your mum or dad forgot to give you the money, there was no leniency at all, as the school had to order precisely the amount paid for. Presumably as they were not allowed to subsidise it, or rather the LEA were not.

There were a few occasions where there were tears from a child whose parent forgot, as it was not brought in on a Monday.

There has never been a Tory councillor in the area since, whereas there were at the time.

In the 1970s, I can vividly remember being forced to eat some gristly meat from the stew. I actually hid it in my mouth until we were let out of the dining hall.
I'm now a vegetarian but have never liked meat.

The article says stopping junior school aged children. I had milk at school in infants so maybe you remember that OP.

Wikki seems to think it was 1977 when it was stopped for all school children.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Act_1944#:~:text=In%201968%20Edward%20Short%2C%20the,Thatcher%2C%20the%20Milk%20Snatcher%22.

We had it in Primary, maybe until 2nd year so that would have been 1980ish. I was delighted to see it go, milk uncooled for afternoon break was grim.

Had it at first school through the mid to late 70s. Little glass bottles with a plastic straw.
Hated it but made to drink it.
We definitely didn't pay for it.
I still hate milk bar a tiny bit of skimmed in my hit drink.

I'm sure my sister says she had it too and she's 10 years younger than me. Think they were cartons then. Again we wouldn't have paid for it as she wasn't, and isn't, a milk drinker.

Our children at my school have free milk until they turn 5, then it's paid for.

Let's get the facts straight:

1968: (Wilson govt - Labour) Edward Short abolished free school milk for secondary school children.
1971: (Heath govt - Tory) Margaret Thatcher ended free school milk for children over 7.
1977: (Callaghan govt - Labour) Shirley Williams ended free school milk for infants below 7.

So most school milk was actually abolished by Labour, including for the very youngest children. But Short and Williams aren't easy rhymes to make in to a juvenile chant.

Izal medicated if I remember rightly. So harsh to use!

We were talking about it in the staffroom recently. I think hospitals had it too.

The school could have let you off drinking it and given the spares to hungrier, needier children - but no just ban it all.

If only declining it had been an option!
Turning down, or refusing, food and drink at school in the 70s simply wasn't an option ime. I'm sure it's why I don't eat meat and ha t done since I was 13y. Memories of being forced to eat liver or chewy, fatty meat at school. Urgh. Sat there for ages whilst you were watched over to ensure you'd swallowed it all down

I had milk at school in the late 60s/early 70s, obviously (awful stuff). When I moved to a private school we had to pay for it 1.5 pence/day. I remember it very clearly because we had to take the correct money in EVERY DAY. Why?
A friend drank mine every day as I gagged if I had to.

I think you had to pay 5p for it

I had it in the 90s, horrible carton with a straw that was always warm. DD has the option of it now but you have to pay- I don’t as I don’t think she needs it and want her to eat her actual dinner

I was a housing worker in 1997, I voted for Blair. The consensus at work was that the Right to Buy would be withdrawn. It wasn’t. In the last few years Scotland and Wales have removed it, but tenants in England can still exercise their right.

The Inner London Education Authority, under Ken Livingstone, paid for milk in all schools

Fare's Fair, school milk and a host of other schemes so infuriated Thatcher, that the Tories disbanded the education authorities and put education in the hands of local authorities and got rid of the Greater London Council, which drove those policies

London voted Ken Livingstone as the first London Mayor in the end...

I had milk in glass bottles in the late nineties- 2000ish - I was born in 1994. I imagine my parents’ had to pay for it at that point though?

I hate milk always have done (only have a tiny splash in coffee), and Mondays at Primary were Hell on Earth. Not only was I made to drink the vile stuff, but Mondays were always rice pudding days at lunch time. My mum always said that the rebel in me was "born" on a Monday in the early 70's. 😅

Margaret Thatcher didn't become Prime Minister until 1979. Labour was in power in 1970 under Harold Wilson who not only personally created the Open University but also made it free for everyone. He was passionate about education and equal opportunities and the Open University gave countless working class people the chance to obtain a degree.

I sincerely hope you don't think that Margaret Thatcher, or any Tory Government, would come up with something so incredibly inspirational and beneficial to society!

School milk was hideous and the milk monitor should shake the carton to make sure you'd finished. Well done to whoever stopped that cruelty - I complained so much about being forced to drink milk I was allowed to have squash instead. I bloody hate squash too. I wanted water. But giving children water to drink in the 70's seemed not to be a thing

There was an obsession at the time about getting milk into children. My mother gave me a milky pudding every day to make me grow.

Thank you for these facts.