Ernest is still showing his bottle 150 years on
YOU might have thought the friendly milkman was a dying breed. But they are making a comeback.
The 4,000-strong army of milkmen is now offering a range of goods as well as dairy produce to compete with supermarkets and provide a more rounded home delivery service.
Delivering to two million homes a day, the profession offers the biggest shopping delivery service in Britain.
The modern-day milkman not only delivers milk in bottles like Ernest in the hit animation film Ethel & Ernest, but more than 250 other groceries. Everything from basics such as bread and eggs to luxuries such as chocolates and champagne. You THE LOCAL MILKMAN also no longer need to slip a note in a bottle if you want any extras – you can change an order using a smartphone.
Milkman Terry Jennings, 45, from Bishop’s Stortford in Hertfordshire, does a milk round for the company milk&more around Saffron Walden, Essex.
Last November, he found a lost dog early on his round. He saw a ‘lost poster’ for the pet and got the dog Barney returned home that same day. Terry says: ‘We offer a local service that you won’t find from a supermarket delivery man. I see myself as serving the community.’
Even though he works antisocial hours – between 3am and 9am – he still has time to stop for a chat with customers to make sure they are OK.
Terry says: ‘My job does not stop at delivering milk and groceries. If milk has not been collected from the doorstep we check to make sure everything is fine. People say we are like a fourth emergency service. The job satisfaction of being valued by customers is wonderful. It is a privilege to do what I do.’
Increasingly, milkmen have had to adapt to the shopping demands of the 21st Century. So if a customer emails an order up to 9pm the day before, it will be delivered on the next round. Terry drives a diesel van but a quarter of milkmen still use electric floats as they have done since the 1950s. The milkman first appeared in the 1860s pushing a ‘milk pram’ loaded with churns and pouring milk into jugs. Milk was still hand-pulled on delivery carts up until the 1950s as depicted in the awardwinning Ethel & Ernest, the graphic novel and animation film by Raymond Briggs.
You can find details of your local milkman at website findmeamilkman.net.