Alphabe Thursday … M is for Milk

I am not quite old enough to remember milk churns.  But I do remember milk being delivered to our doorstep each day with double on Saturday  so the milk man could have a lay in on Sunday.

Having said that I did not see a milkman and his traditional milk float until I was 10 years old and moved into a house and lived on dry land.

Until 1960 my family and I lived in a houseboat on the banks of the Hamble.  The milk did of course deliver milk daily but left it in a box at the end of the lane where it met the river bank where many other boats were moored.  We lived a little way away from the other boats; so my sisters and I were charged with the milk collecting duty everyday.

Milk featured in school life also;  each morning a tiny bottle of milk was distributed among the pupils at my school.It tasted horrible; either warmed by the sun while left in the schoolyard or warmed by the stove if the milk man felt the need to bring it in while he warmed his hands in winter.

I have a dairy allergy now but as a child I loathed milk.  The teacher with a haughty smile wanted us to believe that the milk was a gift from her and or from god and would stand over me until every drop was gone,

So while these images bring back some sunshine memories others are not good.