There's no such thing as a free lunch

It was already pouring hard before your truly started on my regular lunchtime walk around the town centre.

With my left hand firmly holding a gamp and my right hand gripping my lunch box my good self started off on my promenade around the town centre.

There were puddles everywhere and the rain was coming down so hard my umbrella failed to protect me and my back got wet.

Just as one got to the end of White Hart Street I felt a funny sensation in my foot. Sadly my shoe had sprung a leak.

To be honest it was a relief when my walk was over.

Arriving home this evening I caught up on the news and was pleased to learn that free school meals are returning for all the pupils in the country’s infant schools.

Rather than relying on sandwiches the scheme will see the youngsters of the country have a hearty cooked meal at lunchtime as well as saving parents providing food which is estimated at four hundred pounds a year per child.

Sadly the benefit will stop when they leave infant school which seems a shame. Why can't children of all ages be given hot food?

Come to think of it why stop at children?

Why not give those on the dole a free lunch and reduce their benefits accordingly?

Wycombe is blighted with betting shops which, as far as I can see, are mainly frequented by the scroungers and layabouts where they waste their state benefits betting on horses and the like.

Going back to the topic of school meals, I do hope that the already exorbitantly high Council Tax isn't going to be increased to fund these free school meals after all as the saying goes 'there's no such thing as a free lunch'.

Welcome as free school meals may be the supermarkets of the town will be hard hit if parents stop buying food for their children at lunchtimes which may risk pushing the economy back into recession.

Will those parents who decide to opt out of the free school meals be entitled to 'food allowance' for their children? I think they should be after all the free school dinner is a benefit and if a parent opts out then surely they should still be entitled to the benefit.

When my good self was a youngster I never ate a mouthful of school dinner indeed one never set foot inside the canteen at all.

Every lunchtime without fail a chauffeur driven car was waiting outside the school gate to whisk me home to a proper cooked meal in the relaxing surroundings of the dining room at my ancestral home while classical music played to aid digestion.

While the re-introduction of free school meals must be welcomed one fears a whole new generation will be subjected to the traumas of the school canteen with under coked sausages, rock hard potatoes and mushy peas.

The question is will we see the return of the dinner lady who in olden days would goose step around the canteen making sure the children ate every mouthful?

What do you think?

*My next exciting and enthralling blog will be published on Thursday evening around 8pm.

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