Hackney School Chef Wins Lifetime Achievement Award

A school chef who dedicated 42 years to cooking for children has been crowned the winner of Chefs in Schools’ inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award. Margaret Blairy fed children at her local school, Mandeville Primary in Hackney, for over four decades, driven by a love of feeding children well. Over that time, it’s estimated Margaret served up around 2 million school meals, serving on average 250 pupils every school day.

She hung up her school chef apron last year but was lured from retirement to speak at the Chefs in Schools Sustainability Conference at the prestigious Fishmongers Hall. After the Q&A she was surprised with the award. The job was only intended to be a short-term role to fit around family commitments while Margaret raised her own children, but leaving became impossible.

Margaret said: “I fell more and more in love with the job and the cooking and feeding the children. It was a highlight when the children would come to the kitchen and ask for a favourite recipe to take home for their parents to cook. That was inspiring. What’s kept me going is I found I was committed to making sure that the children were well fed.

“School food has changed a lot in forty-two years. It’s no longer custard and cake or sponge with jam. There’s a lot more fruit and vegetables, less sugar and salt. It’s healthier now. It’s nice that things change and for the better. It’s good for the children and there’s always something new to learn. It’s a very rewarding job. It’s nice when the children walk in and appreciate the food or come in through the gates excited to ask what’s for lunch?”

For three decades, Margaret cooked alongside Elizabeth Oyedale who became a close friend. Between them they’ve racked up over 72 years of experience. Margaret said: “All of us worked together as a family, work related or personal problems they could talk to me and we’d work together as a team. If they wanted to annoy me, they would call me boss because while I was in charge, we were all equal.”

Louise Nichols, Executive Headteacher at LEAP Federation and co-founder of Chefs in Schools, presented the award to Margaret. Lousie said: “Margaret was so important to the community and she embraced every challenge. The food was always great but when I wanted to change the menus and brought Nicole in to help us make it all from scratch, Margaret took it in her stride and made the food even better.”

When asked how she’d like to be remembered at the school and what her legacy is, Margaret told the conference: “I would like to be remembered as the chef who loved her job, loved cooking, loved serving the clients – and I mean the children because without them we wouldn’t have a job, so I called them my clients. For my legacy, it would be the jerk chicken with rice and peas and the jollof rice. We were all proud of those dishes. And I shouldn’t forget my Christmas tree biscuits – the children will miss those!”