THIS team was creating school dinners with a difference.

The meals were not for pupils but for customers prepared to pay for their lunch.

Peers School at Littlemore, Oxford, had set up a catering unit for pupils to learn about the trade. They prepared food and served it in a 30-seat restaurant to anyone who wanted to eat there.

The picture above was taken in 1985, soon after the restaurant opened.

We know the three pupils on the right are Jason Guilfoyle, Steven Wick and Kevin Shirley, but we don’t know the names of the chefs on the left.

The project was made possible by sponsorship from 60 local and national companies, which provided everything from new cookers to teaspoons.

The school’s head of catering, Julie Repton, said at the time that 40 pupils were already learning skills one day a week in Oxford college kitchens and at other catering establishments in the city.

The school restaurant would provide additional training, she said.

The aim was to open it four days a week and attract businessmen and women and members of the public.

A typical lunch cost about £3.50.

Among those helping the pupils was David Date, head chef at the London Inter-national Hotel, who was full of praise for the Peers’ pupils.

He said: “Some of them have been round my kitchen at the hotel.

“The response we get from them is more rewarding and gratifying than from college students, who think they know it all.”