Yep, that really happened: When Warrnambool school canteens ruled

Picture it: you got to spend your days with your friends, you were learning about the world and you didn't have to pay for anything. And what about all those holidays?

Now all these things were no doubt lost on most children, but looking back as an adult, it presents as an amazing way to live.

One of the most underrated parts of school was the canteen.

Both in primary and secondary school, the canteen was a magical place to visit.

Back in our sweet spot of the 1960's to the 1980s, the canteen was very much like a milk bar at school.

Healthy food options were less a concern, with ice-creams, chocolate bars and lollies on offer.

The hot food was where the real action was at though, with pies and pasties the king.

Lunch orders were always a treat, but with many families back in the day having plenty of children, the cost of this version of eating out was high.

It was always an exciting day when you headed off to school with your lunch order bag tucked into your pocket.

There were brown or white paper bags, with a space to place your name and order.

What a magnificent task it was when the chance arose to write on that bag "two nibbles pies and sauce please".

The bread roll was to become a powerful figure in the search for a full stomach during school hours.

It ticked many boxes, the first that it was cheap and it came buttered.

The second was it filled a spot, it had some substance.

And lastly, and perhaps most importantly, it was versatile and a key ingredient of lunchtime innovation.

You see, there were so many things you could do with a buttered roll.

You could dip it in your soup. If there was a school canteen without soup, then it should have been shut down, no questions.

We live at the bottom of the world and winters are long and cold.

Soup is among the best things to stay warm, old or young, and my schools always served up soup to savour, with a bread roll dip essential.

Then there were the imaginative concoctions, driven by the hungry bellies of students.

There was the banana in the bread roll, with the fruit, butter and bread a heady mix.

There were the packet of chips emptied into the roll, a crunchy delight.

My personal favourite, and something I still do often to this day, was a hot sausage roll sat inside the bread roll.

The butter melted into the pastry and would run down between your fingers as you bit in.

It was a simple yet sparkling winter treat.

As research for this article, I shot a quick message to some mates who went to school in the 1980s, asking them what their canteen go-to was.

The Boston bun was on the top of the list, hot dogs were popular and for a drink a carton of Big M flavoured milk was high on the list.

Sunny boys were a summer favourite, while chocolate eclairs and vanilla slices were for those with a sweet tooth.

While this all sounds very decadent, it can perhaps paint a false picture.

While all these delightful foods were available, it was only a small portion of the student body that could afford to head to the canteen every day. For the rest of us it was a less common treat.

We were also growing up with Baby Boomer parents who knew the value of their money and to not be frivolous with it.

Many of these parents were also more home-based, with time to prepare school lunches and snacks.

These economic and social restraints led to a natural flow that meant children weren't dining out on a daily basis and were indeed for the vast majority of the time eating food prepared and sent with them from home.

Today, school lunches may be purchased more regularly but as a balance to that, they are also more healthy in their nature.

Like most comparisons from generation to generation, the school canteen shows merit in all methods, with memories dictating the subjective verdicts of what way was better.