Milko
When I was about 13 years old, I worked as a Saturday milk boy for a bloke named Frank. He had short, curly hair with no sideburns, wore heavy-framed tinted glasses and smoked Player’s No.10, which he kept in a stainless steel cigarette case. He wore a white milkman’s cap, an apron and he had a cool leather satchel where he kept all of his loose change. Any notes went into a thick, black wallet that was attached to his belt by a chain and kept in his back pocket. It must have been uncomfortable to sit on even though Frank had brought in his own cushions. Next to him on the driver’s bench sat the ledger, a thick, leather-bound, hand-written record of everyone’s bills.
I got the job by walking up to him in the street and asking him if he needed any help; I already knew that he did because a mate of mine had just stopped working for him. He said he did and I could meet him this Saturday at 5.30 a.m. on the other side of Canonbie Road. I said I’d see him there.
Canonbie Road in Forest Hill is less than half a mile long and is one of the steepest hills in London. Forest Hill is a largely well-to-do, hilly (go figure) area and most of the houses have long sets of steps leading up to or down to their front doors. The electric milk float started its journey at the RACS depot in Peckham, and due to the precipitous heights, needed twice the usual amount of batteries to complete the round. The weight of the extra batteries ironically added to the need for extra batteries.
There were several types of milk: pasteurised; homogenised; skimmed (Frank said skimmed milk is for invalids, like whiting) ; semi-skimmed; sterilised (stir) and gold top. Stir came in tall, slim-necked bottles that had metal crown caps that would cut into your fingers. I’ve got big hands and could, if needed, carry quite a few bottles at a time. You deliver the full bottles thusly: on the right-hand side, three between your four fingers and another one between your thumb and index finger, one standing upright in the palm and one or two under the arm. On the left-hand side: three between your four fingers and two under the arm. On the way back with the empties: two under the right arm and five on each hand, fingers inserted into the bottles. These were then dropped into the empties crates. I spent my earnings on clothes, fags and 7” singles.
Frank took me back to the depot one time. He showed me where they charged up the floats overnight. They were all lined up in their ranks and plugged in to massive sockets. There were men hosing down the decks of the floats where the milk crates were housed and milkies milling about everywhere. The whole place reeked of sour milk and I wondered if the workers’ homes were pervaded by the residue stink and how their families felt about that. We went into the subsidised canteen for a cup of tea and a sandwich. I nearly jumped out of my socks when a six-foot Chinese man said hello to Frank in a Glaswegian accent; pretty much everyone I knew had a London accent. There was some chat that went over my head about me being there. Frank then dropped me home in his motor. A couple of kids who’d worked for Frank said he used to ‘tickle’ them in the lifts in the few blocks of flats on the round, but he never tried that with me.
A few people would invite us in for a cup of tea and a biscuit. I’d sit there, bored, while Frank would chew the fat with the customer. I never took a blind bit of notice of what they were saying. I can only recall a couple of people who we delivered to; one was a hippy with long ginger hair and a beard who smoked roll ups and sat cross-legged in a short towelling dressing gown. The other was an over-friendly woman who always answered the door in her negligee and smelled strongly of what I now know to be sex. She always gave me a big tip.
At lunchtime we’d stop at the greasy spoon by Forest Hill Station. It was always heaving with people and thick with cigarette smoke. Back then the station was a Victorian red brick and stone affair with a clock tower that had its clockfaces missing and it housed a proper ticket hall. Over the road from the caff was a tobacconist that displayed esoteric tools called things like ‘tamping instrument’. A few doors to the left sat the dreaded laundrette. I had to carry the dirty washing to there from our flat, which was about 500 yards away. If my mum hadn’t given me enough sixpenny coins to get it dry, it was a bugger to carry back home. Next door to the caff was an army surplus store, it had a fantastic range of sheath knives in the window. Most of us kids owned one and we’d play splits with them; there was always a story going around about some kid getting a blade right through the foot but I reckon that was bollocks. The caff had a jukebox and Frank thought I was a mug for putting my money in it. Sometimes we had to leave before I got to hear my record. That pissed me right off.
During the school holidays I would help out on Thursdays and Fridays because they are busier days and Frank would get to knock off early. That meant that he could get a bit of extra rest before Saturday’s mammoth task, which was more than double the amount of any weekday delivery. It wasn’t a job for the faint-hearted.
When I started helping out on the round it was January (when a lot of kids get fed up with the cold and packed it in) and now winter was on the way again, so a lot of the customers had gotten used to me. I got quite a few tips. Other lads who did milk rounds and paper rounds told me about getting a Christmas box off the customers. Apparently you got a fair whack and I was right looking forward to getting it and often brought it up with Frank.
My mum had recently been allocated a council flat and we’d moved from the damp basement flat on Devonshire Road to a run down, third-floor flat in a block on the Honor Oak Estate in the arse end of Brockley on St Norbert’s Road. This meant getting up for work in the dark and walking along Brenchley Gardens, which was a spooky experience. On one side: Honor Oak Crematorium and One Tree Hill, on the other: a park and a golf course. I would walk down the middle of the road whistling badly and clutching my penknife.
I’d been ill one recent Saturday and there was no way of letting Frank know. He had to work until about 10 o’clock that night. He was furious and so were the customers.. One morning, a short while before Christmas, Frank sacked me out of the blue. He’d decided that I was lying about being sick the other week, I wasn’t. Earlier in the year I had actually pulled a sickie and got caught out. He cited this as his reason for not believing me this time. It was my turn to be furious. I accused him of concocting a reason to get rid of me so he could keep the Christmas box to himself. Of course he sacked me at the end of the day and the sly bastard gave me a little bit of extra cash to show there were no hard feelings. I later learned that he had a new lad already lined up. Someone he wouldn’t have to share my money with, someone he could more likely tickle in the lifts.
For the next couple of weeks, on Friday and Saturday, I got up extra early and went round to all the customers’ houses where they left cash out to pay their bills. They left it under doormats, bricks and flowerpots. I stole every penny and got my own little Christmas box. Frank didn’t know where I’d moved to but I heard he was on the warpath. Well, fuck you, Frank. I got a morning and an evening paper round at the sweetshop on Cheltenham Road and didn’t go back to Forest Hill.
Biog: Born in East Dulwich, Dave McGowan is a writer, photographer and performer. Author of Earwigging and Other Stories, co-host and founder of spoken word nights: In Yer Ear and The Great Wen, and front man and lyricist in a band called The Messengers of God. He is happy to be living in this, the Golden Age of Beer. His latest meagre offering can be found in this here groovy book: The Cry of the Poor
Earwigging by Dave McGowan | Waterstones
Photo by Peter Clark http://peterclarkimages.co.uk/