Milko-o-oh!

Today

As we now live in a village without a shop, we can no longer just "pop out" to top up on bread or milk. It involves heaving out the car and driving to the next village or to Tesco.

So we were very interested indeed when a chap called a week or so ago offering us a doorstep milk delivery service. Apparently they offer more than just milk. He did emphasise that the milk would again be delivered in "proper" glass bottles but I can't say that altered the attraction for me.

"Will the milkman have a horse?" I joked.

In My Day

When I was a child in London, milk was delivered daily by the Express Dairy, from a man driving a horse and cart. I think that the horse was called George, unless that was the milkman. We were very fond of both milkman and horse. The milkman would signal his arrival with a muezzin-type call - "Milko-o-oh" with a rising cadence at the end.

We would go out and talk to the horse who was very docile and the milk would be brought in.

At that time the milkman delivered milk. the pint bottles were taller than today's more stumpy ones and you could get silver top (the ordinary kind), gold top (Jersey creamy milk) red top (homogenised) and sterilised milk which came in a slightly different design of bottle and which looked slightly brownish, and cream. The days of delivering juices, bread etc were firmly in the future. In fact, I think that Mamma and Daddy saw it as the start of the decline of the great British Milkman, descending into milk delivery anarchy.

We were also fiercely partisan over the delivery company; only Express Dairies were any good; perish the thought of buying milk from United Dairies (now Unigate)!

The demise of our horsedrawn milk delivery system, replaced by milk floats delivering also orange juice and bread seems to be one of those moments, like the end of steam or the trams, that mark our movement out of childhood.

Returning to doorstep deliveries, after years of buying milk in plastic containers from Tesco, is going back in a good way, I feel. And so far, so good, the milkman has successfully delivered milk &  juice as requested all week. No horse, though.