When I was small, every morning the Milkman pulled up in front, came walking up our side-drive, and picked up the empty bottles my Mother left outside on the top step. He replaced them with full ones, all quart size, except heavy cream which was in pints. The bottles were sealed with a cardboard press-in which fitted a groove on top, then a carefully wrapped and glued paper top was over that. In very cold weather, if she was slow going out for the fresh bottles (or, maybe for MY benefit!), one or more bottles would have frozen on top, the layer of cream popping out the seal. I spooned it up like ice cream. The Divco trucks looked just like this. The driver had no seat, but drove it standing up! His door opened by sliding to one side. Those were the days, late '40s and maybe up into the mid-50s. Frank Divco delivery truck Edit: There is a most nostalgic site devoted to the promotion, preservation, restoration, operation and history of Divco Trucks here: http://divco.org/ Lots of wonderful pictures!
For the life of me, I cannot remember what our milkman drove (in New Zealand), but I do remember they would drop off the milk and cream in these small crates. The tops of the glass bottles were aluminium (I think!) The cream was a smaller pint bottle there also. Good stuff!
they were 3 wheel electric over here,then 4 wheel,,,bottles had carboard tops,,,,in frosty weather bluetits would peck through the tops to get to the cream,the veg man still used his horse and cart,,
Yep...and I remember this so well because my father was a milkman for a while, and my brother and I were milk boys...out delivering milk at 4am for 3 hours winter and summer before school... This was the 60's he had an electric 3 wheel float.. and it carried 80 crates of milk. Both my brother and I and another milk boy had individual crates with handles which held, I think..8 pints each , and we were dropped off by the float at each destination and would run with both crates in each hand an as fast as we could lay the milk down at the doorstep. They were very heavy but to this day I think the strength in my upper arms comes from those days . Sometimes into specially made containers built by the home owner to prevent the foil lid being pecked by birds or to prevent the top bursting open in the freezing winter....other times they'd leave a couple of washed yoghurt cups for us to put on top of the lids. We couldn't wear coats we ran too fast too get cold, but we did have to wear fingerless gloves to stop our hands freezing to the bottles in the winter time....although it didn't always work. I can still smell to this day when I think back.. the stale smell of old milk in the empty bottle we had to lift from the doorsteps where some people hadn't washed their bottles out... I have a picture of the float somewhere... That said although the vast majority of people now buy their milk from the supermarket these days... we live in a rural area surrounded by farms , and one dairy farm still delivers milk to some of my neighbours who are prepared to pay the increased price...but in a much more modern truck
Yes, I remember it also....as late as 1964-65. We had a metal box on our front porch that was provided by the company and that's where we put the empties and also were we could get our new order. Besides milk...my mom could order sour cream, etc...just had to either fill out an order form or leave a note...I don't remember the details...wasn't my job.
My first milk wagons I remember were horse drawn the milkman would get out with a heavy peaces of medial that was connected to a rope on the other end to the horse which he throw to the ground so the horse would not leave. He would get out with an assortments of different types of milk products go to the porch and check the note placed in the bottle by my mother inside was what she thought it would cost also. He would select the milk out of what he was carrying and take the empty bottles. Some of us kids would run after the milk wagon and buy chocolate milk from him. Great guy. One day there were no milk bottles out side he knocked on the door and hear my mother say come in the doors were never locked. My mother was sick in bed so he brought the milk in and put it in the icebox for her and said he will come back later to see how she was doing.
Yep I remember the notes so well...they'd be ''No milk today''...or extra pint..or please leave yoghurt or cream, or orange juice. or please leave the milk round the back today ....in those days we didn't deliver bread or eggs but the later milkman in the 70's 80's and 90's carried all of that.. by that time they were delivering all through the day, whereas we delivered early morning in the 60's and everyone had their milk on their doorstep for breakfast. We had a huge round..which included 6 multi storey flats of 20 floors.. and 8 long roads of houses... It was a nightmare delivering the milk in the apartment blocks because we had to use the lift.. and there was 6 apartments on each floor...so for each apartment block we'd have full crates of milk in the lift ( elevator)... and we couldn't risk the lift being called for by anyone so we would take the lift to the top and start on the top floor, open the lift door, and jam it open with the crate while we ran around putting bottles on the doorsteps, then back to the lift and down to the next floor..rinse and repeat all the way to the bottom .. Anyone who tried to get the lift to go to work early in the morning while we were delivering couldn't get it so they'd have to walk down anything up to 20 flights of stairs... We were very fast tho' so it got done in 3 hours......