On a morning like this, when we pop fans all over the globe are reeling at the very sad news that the Thin White Duke has suddenly left the building, I find some comfort in the dull trivia of everyday life. There’s a pile of washing to be done and I need some milk for my morning cuppa.
Dairy products brings me to a small but interesting discovery that I made yesterday, thanks to ip33. There are still milkmen doing their rounds in the UK.
I was convinced that Ernie and his kind had gone the way of the handloom weavers. I went to a Xmas Tree Plundering in the afternoon (as one does here) and chatted to a fellow Englishman who confirmed this fact. The local milk round where his sister lives had died the death but has now been revived and is thriving. A little more expensive but more environmentally friendly.
I wasn’t expecting that.
Which got me thinking about all of those things that one was convinced were bound for extinction and yet are now doing at least modestly well.
Milkmen, Keith Richards, vinyl records, Dr Who, tattoo parlours, gigs by the Stones, postmen, Battlestar Galactica, trams, condoms….
And of course those things that I thought would last and are now no more or on their way out.
Record shops, The Word, paper newspapers, TOTP, Blockbuster video, Woolworths, London black cabs ….
Please feel free to add to these lists.
And there I was thinking that Billy Bragg’s Milkman of Human Kindness was describing something as out-of-date in 2016 as a hansom cab.
Next thing I know, one of you will be telling me that Lieutenant Pigeon are thriving and selling out the O2 arena.
The Pink Fairies are touring in March.
Pink Fairies touring in 2016! The Underground Scene lives on.
I saw them at a scout hut in Watford back in their “prime”. I was deaf for several days afterwards.
I saw them at a hip little west end place (the name of which I should remember but don’t) in about 1969. One of their 2 drummers fell off his stool (probably drunk) half way through the first number and was hauled offstage by a roadie. The rest of the band continued without him. He reappeared about 10-15 minutes later acting very twitchy and hyper.
Our milkman is called Clive. We know this because that’s how he signs the Christmas card he leaves in the porch each year. During the year he wakes me up three times a week at some ungodly hour of the dawn when his furtive presence triggers the porch light as he drops off our creamy delivery. I find this reassuring, and we love him for it. We have no idea what he looks like. We are deeply grateful for his continued dedication to crepuscular delivery service.
That made me laugh out loud VV. Crepuscular dairy delivery, eh? Are you even sure he’s human?
Clive might be a large troll-like being who dares not show himself in the daylight.
A bunch of us rented some manky rooms in a slummy house in West Watford for a while in 1968. Our landlady’s husband was a milkie, known as The Midnight Milkman because all his delivering took place after about 11pm. Allegedly to avoid having to spend the night with his missus.
I started again with milk deliveries again about 2 years ago, I pay a little more than I would for supermarket bought milk but given the way they have been duffing up dairy producers that’s a very small price to pay. He’s called Milson, leaves me a xmas card for which I repay him with a tip, is always very precise with his bills and the milk is there first thing in the morn when I wake up.
If your milk is delivered by Dairy Crest, last August they were paying 22p per litre to farmers, 8p less than the recommended minimum of 30p and a a lot worse than some of the supermarkets. We sacked the Dairy Crest milkman a few years ago as he was a noisy, miserable sod. Yesterday, I noticed the local depot seems to have closed.
N
Not Dairy Crest, but good to know that.
We’ve had our milk delivered since we moved here 18 years ago – they can deliver all sorts of other stuff too although I don’t use that often. It’s a little bit of civilization for me.
Pat Mustard…
“Something for the weekend, Sir?”
Condoms, eh? With arrival of the contraceptive pill, there must have been several, myself included, who thought that Mr Durex’s products and the barber’s discreet enquiry would soon be a thing of the past.
I got that wrong.
Now they are available in all manner of colours, shapes and flavours and, quite rightly there’s nothing shameful about using them. When entering the Roskilde Festival a few years back I was greeted by a pair of beautiful Danish blondes who thrust a few specially produced Festival rubbers into my hand and wished me a fantastic weekend.
What do you reply to that?
I had a few questions to answer when I got home and my sprogs, hoping that Daddy had bought them a present, hastily helped me unpack my luggage and they came tumbling out.
“They’re…um ….Danish balloons.”
Our local Boots is currently selling condoms in their ‘Reduced To Clear’ rack by the till, next to a range of unwanted chocolate Santas and other sundry items left over from the festive season. A classy touch for the chap who whips out his box of ‘Half Price’ stickered gemtlemen’s raincoats at the critical moment following the coffee and liqueurs.
Whenever I see the word “rubbers” I always think of the Gang Of Four’s I Found That Essence Rare. Then I remember that there was a time when we had to travel to another country to buy either.
To flip your question on its head: lights for bicycles – they have been around a long time, are widely available, inexpensive and save lives. Will they never catch on?
Seemingly extinct in the world, or at least on it’s last legs:
Common Sense, Respect, Responsibility, Reason, and the ability to make decisions
(I’m sorry, its been on of those days at work)
Things that, 30 years ago, I would never have guessed would now be in fine fettle :
The UK rail network – twice the passengers it had in the 90s.
Young English folk musicians earning a living.
My parents – still spending my inheritance in their mid 90s.
All of these things have a beneficial effect on my life.
Things that I would never have guessed would have gone :
British Rail
Yugoslavia
ICI
and naturally, in Cheshire the milkmen never went away.
Marvellous list Cheshire. All good news too.
You really think the rail network is in fine fettle? Then you obviously don’t use it! Overpriced, overcrowded, poor punctuality… I could go on…
Ahem – If I remember rightly Cheshire is our man in the cab on certain routes in the NW.
Not as a passenger then. The picture may be as rosy as he paints it in his area – it certainly isn’t in mine!
The rosy bit of it is that demand has soared (and yes, capacity lags behind woefully), which assures the future of the network, when that did not always look the case in my lifetime. My continued employment is an added bonus!
Little bit of milkular trivia that not a lot of people know,Khartoum in the Sudan is the only other place in the known world besides the UK that has bottled milk delivered daily and when i lived there in the 80’s the bottles were sealed with the older type of cardboard tops and no the milk float was not pulled along by a camel.
Thanks @wraggcity. You’ve just answered a question that has crossed my mind all day. If I’d had to guess Khartoum would not even have been on my shortlist.
Googled and found a poem on this topic.
https://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2013/06/30/the-milkman-of-khartoum/
Poems and songs about milkmen in general are, I suspect, in short supply.
There’s Benny Hill’s Ernie and Herman’s Hermits’ No Milk Today.
Let’s given a listen to that Hermit hit.
Here’s a cover version by Joshua James and the Forest Rangers.
Oddly the slide show has no relation to the song whatsoever.
No milkman, but when I was a kid in the late 60s/early 70s we still had a row of shops in place of a supermarket: dairy, butcher shop and grocery store. Everything was behind the counter at the dairy shop and the very nice lady who worked there would sometimes give me a tea cake when I came along when mum was shopping.
I was four (IIRC) when the walls were torn down and the three small shops became one larg(er) co-op.
In those days I used to drink a pint of milk with my sandwiches every night before I went to bed, in a real pint glass. These days it must be fifteen years – at least – since I last had a glass of milk.
Any particular reason for that Locust? I love milk and cheese, but I recently came across this horrible video which put me right off dairy products (warning, pretty horrible viewing):
Well, it just happened. When I got old enough my mum and I would start having beer with our dinner, and when I moved out to my own flat I would drink Coca-Cola (another drink I never touch anymore) or beer or orange juice.
Then when I tried drinking milk again, I had lost the taste for it. Thank god for that, because I had also developed a lactose intolerance!
A few years later I started to drink water only, and I still do. These days I genuinely don’t enjoy anything as much as I enjoy ice cold tap water.
Do people still smoke pipes? I had some older relatives (men) that went through that whole ritual. I haven’t seen a pipe being smoked by someone I know for quite some time.
But I’m not up to speed with Hipsters – that there may well be some trundling around Stoke Newington on their fixies, looking like Edward VII, smoking a pipe.
Bet you’re right about the hipsters, BC.
But generally pipe smoking is a rare sight these days.
Back in the day you could get an Old Shag on any street corner.
Or how about an Amsterdam Shag?
http://www.briarpatch.biz/cart/results.cfm?category=10
Caveat Emptor! Do not, as I foolishly just did, Google “Old Shag”!
Unless of course you are into hard-core, gero-porn.
Loose tobacco smells absolutely wonderful. I sometimes go into the sole remaining tobacconists in the town near us just to inhale.
Great names, too. Borkum Riff pipe tobacco, for instance.
I smoke, but I haven’t had one for twenty five years. . .
Three Nuns, Ready Rubbed, or a Strong Shag?
Decisions, decisions.
*General Melchett voice*
Behhhhhhhppp.
She was only the tobacconist’s daughter but she was the best shag in the shop.
(copyright Hector Nicol 1973)
Ready-rubbed.
*snigggers*
Does any body still take snuff?
In reply to Sniffity, in Sweden we still have “snus” which is a form of tobacco that you put under your upper lip. Sold both loose and in a small tea-bag like sachet. I confess to being a user of the latter.
Pretty disgusting I know but one gets a nicotine kick without polluting the air for others.
It was still on sale a few years back in the tobacconists on Charing Cross Road.
Old Shag.
Helen Mirren, Emmylou Harris and Jane Fonda.
Seems perfectly normal to me.
For many years when I was growing up in east London our milkman used to yodel loudly while making his early morning deliveries. I knew this wasn’t usual practise but at the same time dismissed it without much thought as one of life’s many peculiarities. It was only years later when my mum revealed that it used to drive her mad that I thought about how very odd it was.
I’m surprised that a record company didn’t snap him up, Gary. The Yodelling Milkman would have been a natural labelmate to the Singing Postman.
Hev Yew Gotta Loight Boy?
http://i.imgur.com/TfzKUq1.png
We still get some of our milk delivered. About 80p pint whereas you can get 4 pints for £1 at the supermarket. Not sure why we still do it although the cream on top goes some way to making it worthwhile!
One thing we used to have back on Teesside when I was growing up in the 80s was the Lowcocks pop man bringing cream soda and dandelion and burdock in glass bottles.
His career trajectory sadly doesn’t appear to have been as successful as the milkman!
Another thing I remember as a kid was a video man who would drive around our estate and you could hire videos on a Saturday night. He’d then come back round on the Tuesday to collect them. I’m fairly certain that an 11-yr old hiring 18cert movies should have needed some form of ID but he never seemed bothered! Happy days!
Dandelion and burdock! Marvellous! I love these regional variations.
There’s still a bloke who drives around here in the summer selling large boxes of ice creams and lollies. He’s now diversified into pizzas and pirogs.
Trams are an interesting example of how thinking has changed and an older way of doing things turns out to be rather a good idea after all.
Here in Stockholm they are now expanding the rather small tram network. Gothenburg City Council were more far-sighted and, unlike my cities, did not rip up all the tram lines in the 60s to make way for more cars. They have an excellent tram system.
I believe that trams are now being re-installed in Manchester too.
I’m just old enough to remember trolley buses, trundling around Bournemouth and Christchurch.
Some relatively small places had trams, too. Taunton for instance. Opened in 1901, closed twenty years later, as a price for the electricity they used couldn’t be agreed. Weston-super-Mare had them, Bath and Bristol too.
Trams all over the place in Manchester. They first returned in 1991 and now there’s about half a dozen lines and they’re ripping up the city centre to put more down.
We are a niched website. You’d only find this on the AW.
A cowboy crooner singing about an alpine milkman!
A few more songs about alpine milkmen? Why on earth not?
Jack Hylton and his Orchestra
And making their first AW appearance, please welcome the toe-tapping sounds of the Taipei Mandolin Ensemble.
Rather similar to the Ukelele Orchestra of the UK, except they have mandolins and are Chinese.
Sorry! I’ll try again.
This terrific scenesetter from Saint Etienne’s “Tales From Turnpike House” popped up on one of the free Word CDs. I love the breakdown in the middle when the milk bottle sfx overlap with the plinky keyboard…
(Milk Bottle Symphony)
Nice work Sewer. From one of my favourite bands too.
The milkman is clearly one of the great icons of Britishness.
Also refers to Danny Baker as The Candyman. He was doing the BBC London Breakfast show at the time. I love this track.
Pete Docherty: a milk drinker? This thread is one surprise after the other.
I believe Fat Waller was something of a libertine too.
My very good friend the milkman
Thanks to Sewer Robot, this thread suddenly got a new lease of longlife milk.
Ella Mae Morse – Milkman keep those bottles quiet
I’ve done some pretty esoteric playlists in my time. But today I’ve reached an apogee.
Ladies and gentlemen: Songs about Milkmen!
You may think I’m milking it but this has to be cream of the crop. I’d like you to do butter!
Here’s an oddity: Ask the Milkman by the PIckens County Bandits.
The PCB are a Jack White side project.
Failing that, a song by a milkman (sort of)
Nice work Sniffity! The Dead Milkmen is a brilliant band name.
Excellent Python skits too. The suburban temptress who collects milkmen is wonderfully bizarre.
Also a band called Death By Milkfkoat. I remember my mate kept telling me there was a band called The Dead Milkmen and I kept telling him he was wrong and he’d just got the DBM name mixed up…
Sewer, we seem to have discovered a whole new area here: Milkman Gothic.
I wonder if there’s even been a milkman serial murderer.
A quick Google reveals that there is a comic book called the Milkman Murders.
http://www.darkhorse.com/Books/12-877/Milkman-Murders-TPB
Or an old Python sketch about milkmen
Or two
Unigate were the milk deliverers to our area in the 70s. They invented “Humphreys” that were stripy straws that would nick your milk. How much do you think they paid Muhammad Ali to write a poem and film a TV ad?