MENTION of school meals is probably enough to conjure up gruesome memories for many of us.

Soggy semolina pudding with the jam stirred in -- to make it almost edible -- will be an image familiar to older readers.

School dinners and British Rail sandwiches are somehow inextricably linked in our collective consciousness as symbols of disastrous culinary endeavour.

These thoughts are prompted by a survey for National School Meals Week which found that the cost of a school meal has raced ahead of inflation in the last few years as the service has increasingly been taken over by private companies.

Here in Bolton, though, the local authority insists that prices only go up in line with inflation and our story tonight shows that efforts are being made to stay ahead of the game.

The cashless system which will involve secondary school pupils using a swipe card sounds to be a good idea.

It will remove the stigma of free school meals and perhaps tackle the age-old tradition in which older pupils extract money with menaces from those who are younger and smaller.

Presumably procedures will be in place to make sure there is no lucrative market in stolen swipe cards.

It is also interesting to hear that Bolton secondary school pupils will soon be able to have breakfast, morning break, lunch and more in school.

The food must be pretty good these days for that to happen.