Tony Cunnane's Early Years 1935-53

On the opposite corner from Mrs Dargan's fish shop was our milkman's house and dairy. In the 1940s you needed fresh supplies of milk every day so there were lots of local milk delivery men - older men, presumably, who had not been called up for military service.

Our milkman was a dour character who always seemed to move in slow motion. He started out very early in the morning perched precariously atop a high bench at the front of his horse-drawn cart which had a dozen or so large milk urns on the back. There was nothing else on sale because all other dairy produce was 'on the ration'.

On approaching the homes of his customers he shouted “Milko” loudly. Women, usually still wearing dressing gowns and with rollers in their hair and a ciggie dangling from one corner of their mouth, came rushing out of their doors clutching their own milk jugs. If you didn’t come out quickly with your jug, you got no milk that day. While the milkman slowly ladled gills* of foaming fresh milk into customer’s jugs directly from the urns on the back of his cart, the women exchanged greetings with each other.

If the weather was clement they often paused for a longer chat as the milkman moved on along the street to his next stop. The milk was obviously full-fat because, after standing for an hour or so in the larder, the cream would float to the surface. As a special treat my sister and I were sometimes allowed to spoon some of the cream onto our cornflakes. Our milkman once disappeared for a whole month and Mum had to go around to his house to collect the milk from his wife. Dad said the milkman had gone to prison but he would never tell us why.




* The old-fashioned Imperial measure of a gill was a quarter of a pint but in the Wakefield dialect a gill was, and still is, half a pint.

Above:
This is Tew Street; it was unmade in the 1940s with a very rough, rocky surface - a real hazard to cyclists like me and my pals.

Below:

Another view of the Denby Dale Road end of Avondale Street. Our milkman during the war lived in one of these houses and his 'dairy' and his horse's stable was in the back yard.