Derry woman retires from her role as Area Catering Manager for the Education Authority

Derry woman Carmel Campbell, who was in her post for 32 years, has recently retired from her role as a catering manager for the Education Authority (EA).

Thanking her supervisors for the work they’ve done and the mutual respect they had for one another, Carmel spoke about her delight at being surprised with a retirement party in The Waterfoot Hotel, saying: “I would just like to thank Monica Nixon, Anne Ward and Marie Acheson for everything and for organising my retirement party.

"I didn’t know anything about it! I was just going out with a couple of friends including Anne. But they took me up the stairs, and I knew there was something wrong then. So they were all there, all the supervisors and some of the staff as well. It was lovely, after 32 years it was a really nice wee send off!”

Having spent so many years in the role, her job has impacted the lives of many people throughout the city and beyond. Carmel spoke about the changes in the role and her highlights through the years.

“The job did change a lot in those 32 years, the whole style of food and everything. They’ve moved on a bit, the foods gotten more ‘upmarket’ I suppose you could say. 

Carmel Campbell with from left, Mary Murray, Josephine McDermott, and from right, Shirley McNicholl and Caroline Logan.

“There was a different way of working too. They were very old-school whenever I went in. You had to keep everything back then, so everything had holes in it and a lot of equipment was broken, but you had to make do. Today everything that is used in the kitchens is top of the range equipment which you would never have gotten years ago.

“My job title was Area Catering Manager, I looked after all the Derry City schools, which also spread out as far as Limavady/Magilligan. So there were around 45 schools in all, which I went around and checked the quality of the food, as well as doing all the HR work - doing advertisements and interviews for jobs.

Carmel Campbell with Imelda McCarron. (Photos - Tom Heaney, nwpresspics)

"I had 300 staff, so there was quite a lot of that, but the main part of the job was going into the schools and checking the food quality. Me and my team would have also organised all the menus for the schools, ensuring that all the children were receiving a mixed and balanced diet.”

Carmel explained that while her and her staff were mostly focussed on school meals, that there were often events they would have to focus on as well, saying: “We did do some different functions for the EA, the biggest one of those was for a celebration of the ordination of Father Mongan in St. Mary’s College, where there were 350 people there for a sit-down meal. We did other events as well, like any of the new schools opening, so that was always a bit different from the standard school meals, and was always something to remember, you know?”

Speaking of the more difficult times including the period in which Jamie Oliver was campaigning for better school meals in England, Carmel said: “We did get a lot of stick at that time, but we were never serving the kind of food they were serving in England.”

Carmel Campbell pictured with colleagues at a reception to mark her retirement from the Education Authority Catering Service, held in the Waterfoot Hotel. (Photos - Tom Heaney, nwpresspics)

Laughing in dismay, Carmel stated: “The time of the most difficult  change for us was whenever there was mad cow disease, we couldn’t serve any meat at all. We had to redo all the menus over again and take off all the meat products.

“COVID obviously had a big impact on us as well, we ended up providing packed lunches to the children that were entitled to a free school meal, and they were all delivered by taxis out to houses.

"They were all made in the schools by a small amount of staff due to the restrictions, but there were times then when things got bad and we had no staff due to sickness and all sorts, so we had to sometimes take that to an outside catering company. It was important to get those children fed no matter what, because for a lot of those children, that would be the only meal they would see in a day.”

Reminiscing on the job overall, Carmel stated “I really enjoyed my job. Yes, it was very pressurised, which is something that comes with the territory, you have to manage people.

Caroline with colleagues, from left, Monica Nixon, Marie Atcheson and on right Anne Ward.

“All in all over the past few years especially, I couldn’t complain. I had a really good team, of supervisors especially, and they treated me with respect, as I did them, and that always paid off. It was all a real life lesson, and that was the biggest thing I took away from the job. If you respect others, they’ll respect you back, and you get far more out of people that way.”

Carmel will now be taking a well deserved holiday to the South of France with her partner, saying: “I’m not really pension aged yet, I’m only 63, but life is too short. I’m going to chill out with champagne to celebrate, in Nice and Monte Carlo.”