The Meals on Wheels Service celebrates its 60th birthday this year

Meals on Wheels service is 60 years old

12th October 2007, 2:46pm

Local authorities, private companies, 80 MPs and hundreds of mayors and local councillors got involved across England and Wales to celebrate Meals on Wheels Week.

This year the annual promotional week from October 1-7 also marked the 60th anniversary of the start of the service just after the Second World War.

Derek Johnson of the National Association of Care Catering (NACC), the organisation behind the event, said the indications are that 2007's week had proved very successful.

"I'm still collecting information from local authorities around the country about their individual campaigns, but the signs are that everyone who took part has done a great job to raise awareness of the service.

"Much of the media coverage has been at the local level. In Welwyn Garden City, for instance, Anglia TV were very interested because that is the birthplace of the Meals on Wheels service.

"The Mayor Carl Storer and others dressed up in 1940's fashion and delivered meals as they were at first by WRVS volunteers - in wheelbarrows, prams and by bike, the food bedded down in straw to keep it warm.

"And in my own city of Leeds we had two local mayors from nearby market towns out delivering meals to customers."

In the build-up to this year's 60th birthday celebration in July Conservative MP for Castle Point Bob Spink delivered a statement in the House of Commons on the Meals on Wheels service. This prompted the NACC to write to all MPs asking them to get involved, with more than 80 pledging their commitment to the event.

Then in September NACC contacted the producers of British television's most successful soap opera Coronation Street and got them to feature a Meals on Wheels Week poster on the show while filming hospital scenes.

Johnson said he was continuing to collect details of Meals on Wheels Week events and would produce a report that would be posted on the NACC website and operate as a record of the occasion.

For more information about the National Association of Care Catering click on the following www.thenacc.co.uk.

Related Articles:

• 14 Aug 2009 - Meals on Wheels menu reflects changing tastes

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