(Laughs, shakes his head) Cold. Always cold. But a good cold. In ’96, we had that big freeze in February. I remember the milk was freezing in the bottles on the step before people woke up. The cream would push the silver foil cap up like a little white hat.
The leap to 2021 introduces a brutal shift. Twenty-five years later, the profession has moved from a necessity to a novelty, and finally, to a near-extinction. The 2021 portion of the interview finds the Milkman in a world that has fundamentally changed. Interview With A Milkman -1996- -2021-
Is the job the same? Arthur: The technology is different. I’ve got a handheld GPS telling me Mrs. Higgins’ grandson wants oat milk and organic sourdough delivered with his semi-skimmed. No more tabby cats either—everyone has those doorbell cameras now. I have to wave to the lens so they know it’s me. (Laughs, shakes his head) Cold
Mike, you’re still here. But things look… different. In ’96, we had that big freeze in February
We lost the doorstep. The doorstep was the last analog handshake. The milkman was the one guy who saw your house before you woke up. He knew if your light was on at 3 AM. He knew if you’d put the bins out. He was the witness.
And the glass shortage. That nearly killed us. Everyone wanted milk in glass, but the washing plants shut down. I was hoarding empties like gold. I had 400 bottles in my garden shed, covered in spiders.
In 1996, Arthur’s depot employed 14 milkmen. They had a banter system ("the float boys"). The glass bottles were washed and reused fifteen to twenty times. Arthur earned £280 a week, cash in hand, plus tips at Christmas that would cover the entire holiday feast. He knew which houses had the aggressive Jack Russells and which had the women who would answer the door in a flimsy robe. "Tuesdays were for collecting the money," he says. "You’d knock on the door, the kitchen would smell of bacon, and they’d hand you a jar of coins. It was a human economy."