THREE COURSES—10D.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 October 1941, Page 6

THREE COURSES—10D.

ENGLISH MINERS LIVING WELL

Three-course meals for tenpence are now being served daily from one o’clock to half-past six at Mansfield colliery in Nottinghamshire. Here are three typical menus: — Lentil soup, steak pie, cabbage, potatoes, rhubarb tart and custard. Ox-tail soup, brown stew, carrots, potatoes, date pudding and custard. Celery soup, boiled pork, sage and onion sauce, cabbage and potatoes, jam sponge and custard. The soup costs 2d, meat and two vegetables 6d, and pudding 2d. In spite of the cheapness of the food it is hoped that, when fully developed, the scheme will pay for itself. The miners, and their wives, are so enthusiastic about it that it will probably be extended to other pits in the Bolsover group of which the Mansfield colliery is one.

Cutlery, crockery, tables and cooking equipment are supplied with the help of the Miners’ Welfare Commission which has already sponsored pithead baths, recreation grounds and other amenities.

Three West Yorkshire pits have also got pit-head canteens which are serving from 3,500 to 4,000 hot meals a day—breakfasts, dinners, teas and suppers. Plans are ready for feeding a further 10,000 workers. Lord Woolton, the Minister of Food, has appointed an expert with wide experience in organising industrial canteens to help, and what has now been begun as a wsy-time measure promises to take a permanent place in English colliery life.