Way we used to eat is still affordable

WITH reference to the various reports about some parents not being able to feed their children, I went into a well-known supermarket and worked out the cost of feeding three children for a week.

I costed the following foods: six pints of milk, three large loaves, 500g tub of margarine, a large jar of fruit jam, two packets of biscuits, 1kg of porridge oats, six pounds of potatoes, 15 eggs, four large oranges, six apples, six bananas, 24 small Yorkshire puddings, two tins of baked beans, two tins of spaghetti, two tins of sardines, eight beefburgers, four tins of rice pudding, a large cabbage and five pounds of carrots.

The total cost was £15.90 to feed three children, or £5.30 per child per week!

Fed on this kind of food the children would not get fat but that would be a good thing.

I would also like to make another point. We keep hearing that it is important for children to have a breakfast every day. When I was a child in the 1930s and 1940s no children I ever knew had a breakfast on weekdays. We used to dive out of bed at 8.30am to run to school, or, when we were at grammar school caught the 8.30am bus. We had no time to eat – or wash for that matter!

On Sundays, when our mother did cook breakfast we usually missed them because we set off early to play in the park or go hiking.

On weekdays the chips or bread and dripping (bread and “scrape” we called it) suppers we ate at night – at around 10pm – kept us lively and energetic until lunch time the next day.

Our tea-time meals were often snatched sandwiches when we got home from school because we were in a hurry to get out to play or go to the pictures.

We were all fit and healthy enough!

Nurses’ role in ward hygiene

From: TW Coxon, West Auckland Road, Darlington.

AS a qualified and experienced nurse – now retired – I was interested to read the outcome of the Nursing Times survey regarding nurses cleaning.

Mopping corridors and ward floors is not a nurse’s duty, but there are other areas of hygiene that are. Reference was made to the cleaning of beds after the discharge of patients.

In my day and experience, the nurse training within the Halifax hospitals incorporated the washing, cleaning and disinfecting of all beds after the patients were discharged and before any other patient occupied them.

The procedure was strictly followed under the guidance of the ward sister. Nurses, as part of their training, were expected to ensure that patients requiring assistance to bathe or use the toilet made sure they were clean before and after use.

Nurses had no problem with this procedure, nor should they have had.

Hand-washing after all nursing procedures was mandatory and we certainly did not have to use hand gel to try and control outbreaks of infection because it rarely occurred. I certainly 
think a dedicated ward cleaner, 
as we once had in all wards, would certainly remove the necessity of nurses undertaking cleaning duties described in 
this survey.

All ward staff operated as a team and the cleaning staff were part of the team, working hand in hand with each other to demonstrate the higher standards of care and cleanliness.

I am not sure that this is the case today!

BBC takes gold at Olympics

From: Jack Chantry, Doncaster.

THE BBC coverage of the Olympics was excellent. In contrast, Channel Four’s coverage of the Paralympics was frustrating. Channel Four had too much studio chat, too frequent advert breaks, and too little live action. In short, plaudits for the Beeb and brickbats for Channel Four!

From: Mrs Kay Gee, Elland, West Yorkshire.

i HAVE just been watching the Paralympic Games. What a marvellous credit they are to this country.

Why not suggest in schools that these athletes be the “pin-ups” instead of the highly paid football “stars”?

The paraplegics seem so happy and grateful, even with their disabilities.