The Doorstep Pint

The earliest memory I have of milk delivery is an old motor van from the Co-op driven around our estate, and a horse-drawn vehicle, I think in cream and green, led by one of the Corley brothers from Oakley's who came next door.  The horse nibbled at the grass at the roadside, and as the milkman returned to the gate with empties in his hand the horse moved further along the road on its own; it knew where the customers were just as well as Mr Corley.


Then the Co-op received its smart new electric vehicles, and even in those 1950s days we were able to order orange drink in smaller bottles, and eggs too.  As we, along with most people, possessed no refrigerator we devised methods for keeping the white stuff cool, from cold shady doorstep to stone floor in the coolest room and covered with a tall wet inverted clay pot.  Even then in high summer there was a chance the milk wouldn't last until evening before it turned.  Thank goodness, in those days, for Sunday deliveries.  And an additional benefit was in making some rather unedifying cheese hung in a muslin pouch.

Grandmother talked about taking a jug to the cart where milk was ladled from its large container in the days before TT milk was the norm.  She who had lived her younger life in South London recalled walking to a shop to collect the milk, and returning with her jug covered in damp muslin.  Hedges Farm had such a shop on the corner of Hatfield Road and Glenferrie Road, and there were similar shops in the city centre.

Cunningham Hill Farm claimed to be the first to bottle its milk, and Marshalswick Farm claimed to be the first to deliver milk twice a day direct to regular customers – though before World War One quite who they were is uncertain given the emptiness of that part of the district.

The days of the every-day milkman eventually wound down for most of us.  As the keeping qualities of milk improved, thrice-a-week delivery was considered adequate, and then plastic containers proved less expensive than glass, especially when taking sterilising bottle-washers into account.

So almost universally bulk purchase from the supermarket took out the role of the traditional milkman and at a significantly lower price.  But in places a milk round has continued to find a niche retail position, as other dairy products, vegetables and groceries were added to the goods delivered.

Press advertising for a Hatfield-based company
offering glass bottle doorstep deliveries.

Now, the milkman is embracing the internet and the principle of offering cheaper prices for bulk buying.  While customers can still purchase milk in plastic containers, the glass bottle is back on the delivery menu.  Register



with the company by setting up an online account and suddenly buying your pinta* becomes much easier, with no more need to leave a note tucked in the top of an empty bottle, or waiting for the milkman to book you time out while you're on holiday.

From asking the farmer's wife at the farm gate, to internet ordering in one hundred years, there is still an alternative to the shop in spite of availability from petrol stations, paper shops and as many convenience stores as there were in the fifties.

Milk certainly seems to be an enduring retail product.

* Pinta was a marketing word coined in the 1950s to encourage us all to increase our milk consumption, using the slogan "Drinka pinta milka day."