FROM homework to playground shenanigans, we all have lots of memories good and bad - of being in school.

We asked Rhyl Journal and North Wales Pioneer readers, ‘what’s the best thing you remember about school dinners?’, and this is what they said:

  • Jackie Kingman said: "Wednesday at primary school was hotdogs and chip day, followed by choclate sponge and custard. I loved it only day I would eat everything."
  • Trudy Pike said: "Chocolate cake with white sauce then when started cooking their own roast potatoes."
  • Sarah Davies said: "Taking sandwiches from home!"
  • Pat Nason said: "Fish and chips on Fridays...love them still."
  • Adele Reid said: "Primary school minced chicken pie with mashed potatoes and beans....it was my favourite."
  • Jenny Harker replied: "Goodness yes, I had completely forgotten that one! It was very popular."
  • Donna Holmes said: "Cabbage! I loved school cabbage."
  • Elaine Jervis said: "The school spag bol was lovley, I loved the roast dinners too, any sponge with custard was lovley, always 2nds available. My daughter's school dinners are awful these days."
  • John Kilgallon said: "I loved it all, I remembered the mashed potato cooking and the smell."
  • Lyn Sargent said: "Green mash. Meat in gravy (1x small cube each). Shortbread with pink custard. When you tried to cut it bits flew in all directions. Heart (I won't eat that to this day)."
  • Patricia Ann Young said: "Hated mince, mash potatoes and carrots. Loved ice cream and chocolate sauce also semolina and jam."
  • Andrea Walker replied: "Could never take to semolina."
  • Lisa Mary Havelock said: "Chocolate crunch."
  • Tracey Bustin replied: "THE best!! Pink custard too."
  • Julie Ann replied: "My mum still makes it !!!!!"
  • Ronald Gillatt said: "I adored school dinners especially the dark green cabbage. Very little food at home."
  • Hester Ellis said: "My aunty was one of the dinner ladies, she use to give me the skin off the custard mmm."
  • Deb Leonard said: "Chocolate pudding n pink custard xx"
  • Hayden Perham said: "Turkey twizzlers."
  • Marc Macauley replied: "Never had anything like that in our day."
  • Maggie Weight said: "Chocolate tart with mock cream, God knows what the cream was made of, but I loved it."
  • Joey Bevan said: "Bringing my own!"
  • Lesley Michelle Griffiths said: "Cake and custard.. The nice school cake with icing and sprinkles lol... Also the little bottle of milk we had break times... Oooooo I'm old lol."
  • Sandi Soper-Schaub said: "FF & gravy on Fridays!!"
  • Deborah Adair replied: "Oh yeah!"
  • Gemma Perry said: "Smiley faces and beans!!"
  • Bethan Ridgway-Thorne said: "Proper turkey twizzlers."
  • Paula Jane Price said: "Sitting in a classroom in front of teacher with plates of food I refused to eat, in primary school lol - think it would be called child cruelty nowadays. It happened every time there was liver and semolina. They could add as much jam to the semolina to make it pink but it still looked like wallpaper paste! I worked out if I sat there until the end of lunch break they had to let me leave it as lessons started. Needless to say, no-one ever wins a battle of wills with me."
  • Peter Trehearn replied: "I loved semolina and sago but little else - headmaster gave up on me."
  • David Lodge asked: "All the shrooms in the chicken pie...what chance did we have in life???"
  • Kim Hendricksen said: "Mud castles (chocolate pudding with chocolate custard)."
  • Louis Crested said: "Semolina with jam and biscuit, school cake with custard, minced beef with dumpling topping."
  • Gillian Price said: "Cottage pie, gravy, roast potatoes."
  • Jennifer Royston:"Chips on Fridays."
  • Penny Everton Rowe: "Chocolate concrete and mint custard."
  • Sabrina Gogna replied: "That was my favourite lol."
  • Christine Baker said: "Stayed school dimmers for about a week was sick every day from the smell of cabbage and sawdust that they put on the floor, never ever had another school dinner, went home for dinner afterwards,"
  • Karen Robb said: "Wagging it to go to the chippy. Ours was disgusting, even the local dog turned his nose up."
  • Fiona Levey said: "Potato soup on Fridays as starter and no puddings that day."
  • Brenda Keough Evans said: "Not eating them."
  • Sarah Lloyd said: Blancmange. On that subject, I love going to Ponderosa and I reckon they’d pack the place out daily if they had school puddings on the servery.
  • Richard Lewis said: "Proper home cooked food."
  • Gilly B Kind said: "Always went chippy...chips gravy an fish scrapings."
  • Marc Macauley said: "Lumpy custard."
  • Helen Manning said: "Butterscotch tart."
  • Nino Cerefice Icv replied: "Would love to have that again. Gorgeous like a stiff custard texture in a pastry base."
  • Judy Embrey said: "Loved seconds hated semolina and tapioca..."
  • Mandy Widdows said: "Cannonballs and pink custard."
  • Maria Yates replied: "First thought from me too. I LOVED them x"
  • Dave Card said: "OMG semolina with a blob of jam in the middle."
  • Scott Gilmour said: "Turkey twizzlers."
  • Kyle Griffiths replied: "Seconds."
  • Glenn Parry said: "Taking all the inside of a crusty cob out and filling it with chips."
  • Marcus Farrington said: "Chips on Fridays!!"
  • Tony Parker said: "I’ll never forget the day the gravy moved!"
  • Graham Green said: "Rice pudding with skin on it."
  • Sandra Stowe said: "Chocolate crunch and pink sauce."
  • Ann Hedges replied: "Me too."
  • Annetta Davey said: "Rainbow sponge and chocolate custard."
  • Judith Farrall-Wilks said: "Cheese tart."
  • Zara Allen said: "Chocolate cake and mint custard."
  • Annette Pinfold: "Snap cannonballs and custard."
  • Rhiannon Fennell said: "Caterpillars in the boiled cabbage!"
  • Shirley Malabar said: "Cheese and onion pie!"
  • Laura Lloyd said: "I can’t fault school meals back then… but these days is a different story."
  • Kevin Farrall said: "An extra slice of custard."
  • Steve Beckley said: "Chocolate sponge with chocolate custard."
  • Terry Wincott said: "Chocolate semolina."
  • Chris James said: "Mince and onions with lots of gristle yuk!"
  • Della May said: "Auntie Anne’s school cheese pie."
  • Diane Dean said: "Bakewell tart and custard, always had seconds haha."
  • Ant Peloe said: "Apple pie and custard."
  • Jenny Lewis said: "Toffee tart."
  • Suzanne Lewis replied: Ooh yes, for me it was butterscotch tart so very similar."
  • Avy Louise said: "The bell back to class! The only good thing to come out of school dinners was the Manchester tart and the cornflake tart with custard
  • Debbie Williams said: "We had scoops of lumpy mash, used to take the top off and fill them with salt. Disgusting."
  • Paul Weatherley said: "Pink custard."
  • Lyn Roberts: "Loved my school dinners - easy to please with food - still am."
  • Jane Wynne: "Lobscouse & beetroot! "
  • Janice Taylor: "Chocolate sponge and chocolate sauce..."
  • Roz Dudley: "Chips and ice cream every day…every single day." 
  • Julie Humphreys Prev King: "Loved them."
  • Wayne Roberts: "Kicking the potatoes across the floor to someone else’s table."
  • Delyth Shotter: "Mince pie loved, boiled fish hated, loved school meals generally.
  • Osh Robs said: "Semolina, chocolate custard, coconut and jam sponge cake, blumonge, pie and mash, chips and ham, mince and mash, oh lord! Happy days!"
  • John Harries said: "When school dinners were made fresh in school canteen, mind you that was in the sixties and seventies."
  • Terry Holloway: "Chocolate crunch."
  • Andrea Pereira said: "School cake & cornflake tart & chocolate custard, not all together you understand!"
  • Siân Kelly Elizabeth: "Something called Russian Salad, which was grated carrot and raisins 
  • Joanne Riley: "Cold luncheon meat with chips and beans, never had it since."