27 | October | 2010

When miss Elly went to school at first she carried a school bag.

In those early days the bag contained a pencil case, jotter, a small purse with her dinner money and spare tissues.

There was only one day in the week where she really enjoyed the school lunch and that was when they had Irish stew. Even the teachers queued up that day for some stew. It quickly became obvious that the cook had five recipes each repeated on the same day every week. Elly was fortunate, she loved her food and with a good breakfast to start the day and a full dinner each evening, I looked on the school lunch as a snack.

Very soon I was asked if she could bring a packed lunch instead of the school dinner. I asked why?

“When we have packed lunch, we go to a different room and can start eating it straight away.” she told me, adding: “Then we can go out to the playground and have more time to play football!”

“If you promise me that you will eat all the lunch, then I don’t mind.” I said. She promised.

That is how the Lunch Box started.

I made a round of sandwiches, cut in four and covered in food-wrap. Next was a banana, a bag of crisps, and one of the following [apple, satsuma, peach, plum, pear or bunch of grapes] leaving room for a carton of juice, a paper napkin, wet wipe and a small piece of paper.

Remembering my own school days when we brought our lunches to school, we had no school dinners, I began to feel sorry for Elly. Packed lunches were the only area where mammy fell down. I suppose having to make so many, made it more of a chore. My lunch must have been a nuisance for her since it had to be made without butter and needed some other moisture added to stop the fillings falling out!

So Elly’s lunch box became larger and I had to use my imagination to add variety. The fruit content, crisps and juice were always there, but the sandwich was where I rang the changes.

On random days I……