So in Australia they're thinking of reintroducing school milk, are
they? This used to be done in the UK as well, when I was a child. I believe
it was introduced after the war, when it was realised that many children
were suffering from poor nutrition. It was stopped by Margaret Thatcher when
she became education minister (I think it must have been the late 60s or
early 70s.) It was not a popular move, but she said it was no longer
necessary. I once heard a psychologist suggest that the fact that she took
milk away from school children may have been connected with her poor
relationship with her mother.
        School milk was certainly introduced with the best of intentions.
However, all the way through primary school I suffered from a runny nose and
terrible ear aches. I lost interest in drinking the milk when I was about
ten, and as I remember, the runny nose improved around the same time. Of
course then people didn't know about allergies. (It also occurs to me now
that the runny nose may have been due to my father smoking - we didn't know
about that then either!)
                                Anna Lowenstein
                                Zagarolo, Italy