A Monthly Publication

By N.M. Cornwell

Question - who celebrated his 150^th birthday last year and connects Sean Connery, Harry Enfield, celebrity chef Marco Pierre White, Benny hill and Level 42 frontman Mark King?

The answer is the great British milkman (all of the celebrities worked as ‘Ernies’ before finding fame and fortune.

The technology driven 21^st Century is light years removed from the world of the 1850’s when dairies first started to offer home delivery. Previously customers would turn up at the door of the villager dairy to have whatever containers they brought with them filled with the white stuff.

Somehow, as virtually every other quaint Victorian tradition has been ruthlessly exterminated over the years by that merciless predator we call ‘Progress’, the British milkman has stubbornly refused to die. But as the humble village shop dies a slow and seemingly inexorable death are the days of the milkman numbered? And if they are, who would miss him?

Well according to a survey carried out recently* the surprising answer is .... most of us. Two-thirds of people questioned picked the milkman as the person who best represents what a traditional British community ios all about. And that’s the paradox. We say we want to see local milkmen, we say we want to have traditional village shops, we say we want a village post office, we say we want a village pub - but when it comes to the crunch how many of us actually USE these local services on a regular basis?

The latest figures from the Office of National Statistics reveal that the average age of Hunstanton is 52; a staggering 42% of the town’s population is over 64. A large section of our local community doesn’t have access to a car and rely on the local milkman to deliver not only milk, but an ever-increasing range of household products to their door.

With life expectancy steadily increasing our chance of living beyond our allotted three score years and ten has never been better but what kind of world are we creating for our twilight years? The checkout operator at the out-of-town supermarket won’t change your light bulb because you are too frail to climb on a chair, they won’t post your letters because you’re afraid of slipping on icy footpaths, they won’t notice when your curtains are drawn, and they certainly won’t call the emergency services and administer first aid when they discover you unable to get up after you have had a fall - as the local milkman in Brancaster did just last summer. And amidst asll the recent bad weather, as shops, schools, offices and even banks have all shut their doors, the milkmen of West Norfolk have delivered without fail however extreme the conditions.

Milk delivery has changed beyond all recognition since the hand-pulled carts of the 1850’s, from horse-drawn floats to the very first electric vehicles in the 1940’s, from the first recyclable glass bottles to the first waxed paper cartons. The milkman has now entered the digital age with customers able to order and pay online, and with handheld computers replacing the traditional handwritten roundsbooks. 150 years on he still provides a uniquely British service and for the elderly and isolated members of our community he’s an essential lifeline, delivering not only milk but over 250 household essentials from potatoes to pet food. But if the rest of us don’t support the kind of personal service that he and many of our small local independent shops provide here and now, will we spend our autumn years looking back with regret on the ‘good old days’ of the doorstep milkman?

Two letters in one of the Sunday papers just recently summed up the situation perfectly. An ex-pat in the States warned - “Don’t take home delivery for granted. Most of the US lost home delivery decades ago and we miss it terribly” whilst a lady in Dublin put it even more succinctly - “We didn’t appreciate it until it was gone”.

You can contact your local dairy on 01485 570216, or visit www.findmeamilkman.net or www.milkandmore.co.uk

*Survey carried out 28^th September 2009 by Opinion Matters