If there is one scent which triggers my earliest school day memories, it is, surely, that sweet tang of slightly on-the-turn milk.

Back in the late 1970s – and I can remember only getting it in infant school – we received a mini bottle of the white stuff every morning. They’d arrive in crates like the milkman (remember them?) used to use.

It came in a glass bottle with a little foil lid you could push through with your fingers. A straw would be plonked in it for ease of consumption.

I rarely remember it being chilled - it always seemed to be at an unpleasant ‘room temperature’ and it never endeared me to drinking the stuff ‘straight’ for pleasure. However, my calcium levels were no doubt sufficiently boosted, so let’s not knock it.

I mention this because an exhibition has opened recently charting the history of the humble school dinner – that other once-daily event which immediately conjures up images of times gone by.

But while the good folk of Suffolk – where the event is taking place – will no doubt flock (however niche the event may be), one thing struck me in an image showing the evolution of the meals; the plates.

When I last ate a school dinner – and we’re going back to the late 1970s, early 1980s here at primary school – we had proper crockery.

If you dropped the plates, they smashed into a million pieces and you’d get a severe reprimand (while, obviously, delighting your gathered classmates).

Assuming you’d got back to your assigned table without making a fool of yourself, before you could pick up a knife and fork, we all had to bow our heads and thank ‘our Father’ for what we were about to receive. A nice touch or a tiresome chore - take your pick.

I’m guessing schools, outside of the strongly religious ones, don’t do that anymore. But I may, as so often, be wrong.

Today, however, gone are ‘proper plates’ and in their place are plastic moulded ‘trays’ where servings of each food type can be dolloped. Veg in here, custard here. You know, like they get in prison.

Surely there’s a danger of semolina infiltrating your spuds? Not to mention failing to teach them to eat food off a proper plate rather than a plastic trough?

It’s not the end of the world, I grant you – and when you drop one they probably simply bounce back into your hands, food all gloriously intact (rather than spotted dick festooned with shards of broken bowl).

I assume cost today determines non-breakable plastic a far more economic alternative. But it seems a shame. Like it’s dumbing down our standards.

Mind you, if these kids find themselves one day serving time at His Majesty’s pleasure, they will, at least, be familiar with where the porridge goes.