guardian.co.uk,
Peter Walker, Friday 15 June 2012
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| Nine-year-old Martha Payne's blog about her school meals has gone viral on the internet. Photograph: Gordon Jack/scotimage.com |
A Scottish
council has swiftly reversed its decision to ban a nine-year-old girl from
photographing her school lunches for a personal blog following criticism from
Jamie Oliver and a wave of negative publicity on Twitter and other social media
sites.
Less than
two hours after releasing a strongly-worded broadside calling Martha Payne's
pictures of the sometimes meagre and unappealing meals on offer at her primary
school misleading, Argyll and Bute council had a change of heart.
Roddy
McCuish, the council leader, told BBC Radio 4 that he had ordered an immediate
reverse of the ban, imposed earlier this week. He said: "There's no place
for censorship in Argyll and Bute council and there never has been and there
never will be.
"I've
just instructed senior officials to immediately withdraw the ban on pictures
from the school dining hall. It's a good thing to do, to change your mind, and
I've certainly done that."
It marks a
complete reverse of the council's position earlier this morning, when a
statement directly attacked the NeverSeconds blog, set up by Martha just six
weeks before as a writing project, for "unwarranted attacks on its schools
catering service which culminated in national press headlines which have led
catering staff to fear for their jobs".
The
statement added: "The council has directly avoided any criticism of anyone
involved in the NeverSeconds blog for obvious reasons, despite a strongly held
view that the information presented in it misrepresented the options and
choices available to pupils. However, this escalation means we had to act to
protect staff from the distress and harm it was causing."
Martha had
the swift support of chef and school meals campaigner Jamie Oliver, who
tweeted: "Stay strong Martha", and the outrage of thousands of people
on Twitter who condemned the council's actions as absurd and heavy-handed.
Michael
Russell, the Payne family's local MSP, said he had emailed the council's chief
executive to ask officials to reconsider the ban. Russell told the Guardian:
"It's just not a sensible decision. Censorship doesn't help anybody."
The saga
began when the aspiring journalist set up the blog with the help of her father,
Dave. With the permission of teachers she photographed lunches as they arrived
on their white plastic trays and gave the contents marks out of 10 on a
"Food-o-meter" scale for how healthy they were and whether or not she
found any stray hairs.
In little
over a week the blog was being posted on social networking sites and had received 100,000 visitors, bringing a tweet of congratulation from Oliver.
The blog
soon branched out, with Martha posting photographs of school dinners sent in
from around the world – generally a much healthier selection of dishes than
seen in the canteen at Lochgilphead primary school.
The
problems began when newspapers picked up on the blog. Martha had been posting
anonymously as Veg, but they named her and the school, often adding their own
criticism of the food. The final straw for the council appears to have been a
Daily Record piece with the headline, "Time to fire the dinner
ladies".
On Thursday
came a post from Martha from titled simply Goodbye: "This morning in maths
I got taken out of class by my headteacher and taken to her office. I was told
that I could not take any more photos of my school dinners because of a
headline in a newspaper today.
"I
only write my blog not newspapers and I am sad I am no longer allowed to take
photos. I will miss sharing and rating my school dinners and I'll miss seeing
the dinners you send me too. I don't think I will be able to finish raising
enough money for a kitchen for Mary's Meals either."
In fact
Martha's efforts to raise money for the charity, which helps to provide school
food in east Africa, have received an enormous boost from the publicity. Before
her blog was banned she had reached £2,000 in contributions. By Friday
lunchtime the figure had exceeded £19,000.
Mary's
Meals said it had been overwhelmed at the response and that Martha's efforts
had now raised enough to build a new kitchen at a school in Malawi.
In an
interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Dave Payne said the blog had never
been intended as an attack on the council. "The last photograph of a meal
at school which she blogged, she gave it 10 out of 10. She enjoys the
atmosphere in the school dining hall, she enjoys the staff, everyone's been
very kind to her," he said.
Also
speaking to the BBC, McCuish said that while there was "absolutely no
place" for reports targeting school kitchen staff, the council recognised
that they had not been Martha's work. He hoped, he added, to talk to the family
soon.
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