School meals during the holiday time not a good idea

Living standards in the world have improved massively since the end of World War 2. Before that two wars decimated nations with masses of people dying of all kinds of conditions, amongst them hunger through poverty.

By comparison fewer people today in the UK are poverty stricken though you wouldn’t think that to hear the demands for children to be fed by the state during school holidays and lockdowns.

The suggestion also from the ‘left’ wing of politics is that this should be established permanently so Boris is resisting it.

No one wants to see children go hungry but the inability of many parents these days to cook even a basic meal is a starting point for an argument about whether or not school meals should be part of the school project, even when it’s holiday time.

I was born just after the Second World War ended, living in a backwoods part of south Derry. Menfolk everywhere were back from the war and home life was re-adjusting. Food was not plentiful but every house had a very large bag of flour in the pantry and buttermilk in a jug. Sugar was in short supply but there was enough for home baking. Gardens were not for sunbathing but for growing potatoes and vegetables. Roughly built glass houses were for the production of tomatoes. Every Friday, an open topped blue van arrived – we called ours the melody-man – to sell a variety of stuff including HP sauce, Birds custard powder and other condiments for the larder.

We knew from radio broadcasts that food was short in the towns and cities of the United Kingdom.

But hunger was alien to country folk like us, as mothers rose at dawn to bake the scones for breakfast and boil or fry the eggs bought from the Friday van man or, if you were lucky, from the few chickens each house always kept.

Soups and stews were the main menu and fish was plentiful, especially if you lived near Lough Neagh or the Moyola River as we did. Greater efforts were made to supply the food and treats for the best times of the year – Halloween and Christmas. Today, being Halloween, reminds me of the magnificent pudding my mother made and the unusual potato pudding made by our nearest neighbour for this special occasion.

Amazingly, today, in many a households the dinner has come from the nearest takeaway and breakfast is a bowl of cornflakes and a fizzy drink. The price of a takeaway tea for four could keep a family supplied in good home-made food for several days. But that is too much work. It has to be instant or nothing.

It was suggested this week that a government which gives in to the school meals-throughout- holidays will be piling up a massive bill for the rest of us. During a pandemic, when so many people have lost their jobs it may be justified. Yet, I haven’t met anyone this week who thinks it’s a good idea to continue through all school holidays. Where does responsibility for parenting begin and end?

Will every crisis – political or otherwise - be an excuse for some parents to abandon their responsibilities towards their children because the government will always pick up the tab? We have a generation of parents who can’t-cook-won’t-cook, rearing a generation of children on instant food from the nearby chippy.

It suits them very well to have their children fed during the school holidays with the rest of us footing the bill. And it’s not true, as some would suggest, that working mothers don’t have the time to cook and meals during the school holidays is a very good idea. It isn’t. Children must learn to cook to survive.