I reckon I dodged a bullet when it came to one particular Australian school tradition.

I was born in 1970, so by the time I started primary school, the government’s free school milk scheme had finished. I’ve heard enough stories about it over the years to wonder whether I was lucky to miss out.

The idea was simple enough where every child received a little bottle of milk each school day, courtesy of the government. But according to plenty of former schoolchildren, the trouble began somewhere between the milk arriving and somebody actually drinking it.

On a hot Australian morning, that could be quite a while.

A third of a pint, whether you liked it or not

The national scheme began in 1951, although some states had already provided milk to schoolchildren, and it was introduced to improve children’s nutrition at a time when governments were concerned about the diets of growing youngsters.

Children under 13 were entitled to one-third of a pint, roughly 189 millilitres, each school day.

The milk generally arrived in little glass bottles, often with foil tops, packed into metal crates. Some children remember enjoying it cold, while others recall bottles sitting around long enough to become unpleasantly warm.

Then there was the cream that collected at the top. Milk wasn’t always homogenised as it commonly is today, so that first mouthful could be quite different from what children were used to drinking at home.

Depending on who you ask, it was either the best bit or the worst.

The mighty milk monitor

One detail I really noticed is the milk monitor, the child entrusted with helping distribute the bottles around the school.

It was one of those classroom jobs that came with a certain amount of prestige, although I imagine there were easier ways to impress your teacher than lugging crates of milk around.

The monitors couldn’t do much about the weather, of course, and stories have survived of magpies pecking at the foil tops of bottles left outside.

I can also imagine the negotiations between children who loved milk and those who would happily have handed theirs over. After all, there was always somebody willing to take seconds.

Was it really that bad?

The interesting thing is that not everybody remembers school milk with horror.

Some children apparently looked forward to it, and for families doing it tough, a free daily drink was a welcome addition. Others still shudder at the thought of warm milk and that layer of cream floating at the top.

The Commonwealth scheme ended in 1973 after a government review questioned whether its nutritional benefits justified the expense. Some state programs continued afterwards, but the familiar little bottles gradually disappeared from classrooms.

I grew up on a farm, so milk itself was hardly a novelty, and rightly or wrongly, it was super fun for a toddler to have mum or dad get you to open your mouth from a distance and squirt milk from the udder. But drinking a bottle that had been sitting around the schoolyard on a hot day? I’m not sure I’d have been lining up for seconds.

Then again, perhaps the stories have grown a little over the years. I know from experience how a good schoolyard tale can improve with every retelling.

So I’m throwing this one over to those who were actually there.

Did you enjoy your free school milk, or were you one of the kids who dreaded seeing those little bottles arrive? And did anyone really manage to get out of drinking it?

This article is part of ‘Lessons That Last’, a new Starts At 60 series exploring the memories, traditions and school experiences that shape Australians across generations, presented in partnership with Schoolblazer Limited, a specialist school uniform company that works with hundreds of schools internationally. Through Lessons That Last, Starts At 60 is exploring the memories and experiences of school life across generations of Australians.

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