Memory Lane…A day on the churns
Milestones in ones life and at a certain age you are strong enough with a mate together to lift a full ten gallon milk churn off the ground as high as a lorry bed.
Your on! you are man enough to go on the milk round. My family was sort of connected to The Watkins Family at Westmont ,Bridge Road, Frampton who at the time had about five Morris Commercial Lorries collecting milk for Cadbury’s at Frampton. Especially at Holiday times like Easter they were glad of help to enable everyone to finish early. My lifelong friend John Magor who was also related to The Watkins and I would be encouraged to come on the milk run for a day for the price of a promise of some Cadbury’s crumb. Cycling over to Westmont early in the morning all of the lorries would be ready to roll each loaded with a full bed of empty churns. But departure was not yet as some farmers would not have had their morning milking finished. A convoy up the Perryway and everyone going off in different directions. The Morris Commercials had only one passenger seat so one of us would sit on the engine cover. Seat Belts were a thing of the future. I remember most the Cambridge, Cam, Coaley, Frocester run best of all. Down the A38 and halfway the first stop. Sensible farms has a churn stand which was somewhere around the height of the lorry bed. This made the loading so much easier. So one churn off one churn on..check the docket…”What?” Make sure there is a ticket on every churn and make sure it is filled out! Those not familiar with Cadbury’s churns they had a small pin on the side at the top and the farmer attached a stiff brown card giving the date, quantity of milk and where the farm was. This was in the form of a smudged rubber address stamp.. Painted on each side was a coloured circle which indicated when the churn was last overhauled. Often several colours were visible. The rest of the run was very much the same one churn off one churn on and boy was there a difference in the handling of the full and empty churns. Some farmers would be waiting to greet you and in some instances a brown paper bag of Crumb would be passed silently. With three on the gang the driver, usually Reg Davis would stay seated whilst us enthusiastic helpers would do the humping at speed.
With a full load it was back down the Perryway which was the racetrack for milk lorries…..get in quick, get offloaded, get home. Everybody knew everybody else and they knew just when a certain round would be in Frampton no matter where they came from. Into the Factory and find a spare bay on the Milk Deck. Roll those churns onto a designated area and someone knocks all the lids loose. I am hazy but I think samples were taken before the churn was moved but our job is done and we have an empty lorry. I think we moved to a loading chute to refill the lorry and you make sure the handles on the churns are East /West so no matter which way the next churn is delivered its handles will not hit your fingers. Because if it does you will need to say OUCH! Very loudly. Job done , day finished, milk round completed…. not quite ….it is bonus time. The Frampton Factory had a canteen and they served hot chocolate that cannot be bought anywhere else in the world.
I had never seen half pint china mugs but they had them there. The gorgeous smell of hot milk and chocolate will last forever. Both cold hands around the cup and sup slowly, make it last.