This is a (politically) topical subject at the moment with the likes of Jamie Oliver and I can't see we've had a specific thread on the actual contents of the meals at KBGS - such as they were.
To start the ball rolling I have not particularly fond memories of slices of flacid beef/pork with a good margin of rubbery fat swimming in a solution of diluted bile. Other than a fairly acceptable fried fish we were subject to steamed cod, again in a milky suspension of God knows what. Accompanying vegetables invariably comprised foul-smelling over-cooked greens and mashed potatoes in a virtual liquified format.You could almost pour this concoction into a Duralex water glass and drink it if you so wished.
Sweet courses faired a little better except for rice pudding/semolina/tapioca with the obligatory prunes or dollop of jam. When it came to sponge puddings or blocks of cake-like substance there was the ever-present custard with requisite quarter inch skin as a protective coating. An unusual combination which I thought worked well was a chocolate pudding confection with nuts on and of all things, strawberry custard.
Just a few highlights which immediately spring to mind...I'm sure there are many more horror dishes to which others have been exposed!

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1960-68

Having parents who both worked, and living 15 miles (by bus) from school during my KBGS days, I was subjected to as many school dinners as most I think. Something approaching 14 years would be a fair estimate.
Yes, they were pretty abysmal and seemed to vary not one iota between educational institutions in my experience. I still retain a vivid memory of the unappetising smell - constant from one day to the next - try it yourselves if you're brave enough!
Were the dinners mass produced at some hidden testing centre prior to distribution throughout the West Riding? That said, I seem to recall a distinct improvement on moving to Oakbank, which produced better fare on site.
Somehow, Anthony, you seem to have overlooked the apparent 1950s/60s world surplus of dates, which is one of my least fond memories of school puddings - they came stuck to the bottom of sponge, hidden under tart crusts, and in any other form the culinary experts of the time could devise, inevitably smeared with the ubiquitous custard you describe. The mashed spuds were particularly unpopular - and not without good reason! - hard lumps (often black) within a sort of emulsion. The dinner table waiters seemed to carry more back to the kitchen than was initially slopped on the plates.
As I've recounted previously, though, Mr.Slater seemed to have no qualms about satiating his considerable appetite at school lunchtimes - he even seemed to volunteer for extra dinner duties in order to indulge his somewhat unusual dietary tastes (particularly during the Alice St. annexe days).

Yes,I momentarily overlooked the basic date ingredient on many sweet courses. The stones went much the same way as those of the prunes ie; into the metallic water jug propelled either by a flick or (on some tables)a spit!
The concession to healthy eating in the form of what could loosely be described as salad was usually accompanied by a fair amount of grit; overall impression was of a weird pink hue exacerbated by soggy grated carrot and thin strips of beetroot. This was often served with a bacon, egg and cheese pie concoction.
Was Slater the so-called hip French teacher (Malcolm?)the trougher of all and sundry?

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1960-68

Poetry Corner: anybody remember the school dinner chant that was prevalent in the fifties and sixties on the subject of school dinners? There are versions up and down the country, but the Keighley version went: "Snot and bubble pasty/Green phlegm pie/All mixed up with a dead dogs eye./Snakes in the middle/To make it thick/And wash it all down/With a cup of cold sick".
Mmmmmnnn - all thos lovely flavours happening in there. And only 37p on the plate!

You should be so lucky...... on the menu in the '50s were:
Fly Cemetery; Turd Cart (spoonerism!!); Camel Come (turgid gritty custard); Frog Spawn (sago pud); Stodge (assorted ballast for dessert). But we was nourished and we was 'ellfy - and better fed than the daily wartime ration which Churchill thought was inadequate for one week!! Any damage to our health through injudicious indulgence we did later in life (like school camp?)

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) terrymarston@hotmail.com

I was fortunate never to have a school dinner, as I could get home at lunchtimes from Ingrow Juniors, KBGS, and Oakbank. My mother recalls rice/sago/semolina pudding with a dollop of jam was known as 'blood and bandages' in her time at KGGS (late 1930's). Maybe Tom Punt recalls this?

In around 1900, there was general concern about the health of the British people. Even some 50 years after the horrors of the Industrial Revolution, child mortality was still high, living conditions were overcrowded and insanitary, and army leaders were shocked to find that many of the young men recruited for the Boer War (1899-1902) were small, undernourished and generally unfit to fight. The primary problem was poverty: wages were too low to guarantee a decent standard of living and many children born malnourished were to remain so.

Organisations such as the Salvation Army began offering cheap meals for children. The London Schools Board had established a School Dinners Association in 1889 to offer cheap, or free, school meals. With the advent of compulsory education, it had been recognised that hungry children cannot learn. By 1904, some 350 voluntary bodies were providing meals for undernourished children.

In 1906, the newly elected Liberal government passed the Education (Provision of Meals) Act to ensure that British children could grow up healthily. The act allowed Local Education Authorities (LEAs) to contribute to school canteen committees and, in certain cases, to provide free meals for the poorest children. By 1920, after a slump in numbers during the First World War, more than one million children were being provided with meals. Free milk in schools was introduced in 1924 (to be withdrawn in the early 1970s by Margaret Thatcher, "Milk Snatcher").

By 1940, the government was paying 95 per cent of the cost of meals and recommendations on nutritional content, staffing levels and organisation of service were introduced. The Education Act of 1944 made compulsory what had previously been performed by LEAs on a voluntary basis: every child in a maintained school had to be provided with a meal - 1.8 million children were now taking school meals. By 1947, the full cost of school meals was met by the government.

During the 1950s, the price of school meals went up gradually (from 6d to 1/- or double). In 1967, though, the 100 per cent governmental grant for school expenditure was withdrawn. In 1978, a government white paper on public expenditure estimated the cost of producing school meals at £380 million and targeted a reduction to £190 million. This immediately reduced the quality of the meals and service provided, and convenience meals began to be commonplace.

At the same time, the dreaded cafeteria was introduced into secondary schools. And then in 1980 the new Education Act gave LEAs the power to axe the school meals service. The era of the processed dinner had begun.

From: www.telegraph.co.uk

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) cpfirth@singnet.com.sg

Current location (optional) www.kbgs.com

Chris-I seem to recall that we paid 2/1d(two shillings and a penny)for 5 days when I was at primary school.
Alan--my memory of that rhyme in the forties was very similar except it was a "deadcats eye" then----"slugs and snails,laid on thick---all washed down with a cup of cold sick"ugh.!! Cheers.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 47-51

Current location (optional) Auckland NZ

5d a day sounds about right for that era.
In my own primary school days (fifties), I recall dinners costing 3s 6d a week, and the hue and cry which accompanied their inflationary rise to 4s 2d.
Dinner money was always collected by "the teacher" first thing every Monday morning, along with any Yorkshire Penny Bank savings.
By the time I left school altogether in 1965, the weekly cost had risen to 5s. Families received no child benefit for their firstborn either in those days!

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58 -65

What worried me was the fact that the beef always had tubes in it - presumably a measure of how old the wretched beast was at the time of slaughter.

It was butchered to save its life.
Probably the first generation to fall victim to BSE - the beast I mean, not us!

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58 -65

At last the schools are reverting to meat and two vegetables. Thanks to Jamie oliver, the cocky little twerp.

Brian,
I thought that you brought sandwiches, or was that Ernie Entwistle?

Current location (optional) Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia

It would have been Ernie - Sandwiches were allowed at KBGS only some time after we joined, but you know I was never so mamby-pamby Marcus!

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58 - 65

"Joined"?! Did you have to join?? Was there a choice?? I was dragooned into service!!

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 52-60

I must have been thinking of the way most blokes were said to join the armed forces during W.W.2!
I've heared that called "joining up", and it sounds pretty similar to the process you recall.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58 - 65

"Joined up" at KBGS was how you did your writing once you got into the VIth form.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 52-60