London

Delivering milk in London has never been easy. In medieval times it came from farms outside the city walls and was ‘transported in unsterilised, unrefrigerated wooden churns bumping along muddy, rutted roads,’ according to Annette Hope’s book, ‘Londoners’ Larder’.

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Affairs had not improved by the eighteenth century, and Tobias Smollett’s 1771 novel ‘The Expedition of Humphry Clinker’ includes a mesmerising paragraph about the evils of milk that was ‘frothed with bruised snails… exposed to foul rinsings, spittle, snot and tobacco quids… dirt and trash chucked into it by roguish boys for the joke’s sake’. Lovely.

Not surprisingly, an alternative was desired, and many Londoners would buy fresh milk from the dairywoman who drove her cow through the streets. Another option was to keep cows in the city, which resulted in small dairies springing up all over London to serve the local community. These city dairies became an established part of London life (see sidebar) until they were hit by the growth of the railways, which introduced the ‘milk train’ carrying early-morning milk fresh from the country. By the end of the nineteenth century, the health benefits of milk (it contains calcium, protein and vitamins A, B12, D and K) were well understood. To meet increased demand, Express Dairies introduced the first electric floats from its Kenton and Highgate depots in April 1932 and milk floats became a common sight (and sound) on London’s streets. As transport improved, the capital’s local dairies started to close and the big suburban depots took over milk production.

London’s biggest delivery company, Dairy Crest, now has 16 depots in London, with around 400 rounds, about half the number it had 20 years ago.

One of the 600 stops Ian makes each day

‘I’m a bit of a perfectionist,’ says Ian Beardwell, one of Dairy Crest’s London milkmen, as he steers his rickety electric float through narrow Wandsworth streets in the early hours. ‘Whenever I’ve got an assistant shadowing me I find myself following them around to make sure they put the bottles on the right side of the doorstep.’

Ian, 37, has ridden the lactic wagon for 15 years. So did his father before him, and his uncle, and his brother. ‘There were four of us all working for Dairy Crest with our names on the front of the float – but I wouldn’t say it was the family business.’ He works out of Dairy Crest’s depot in the back streets of Wimbledon, driving down from his home to Islington at 2.30 every morning: ‘18 minutes it takes; and an hour-and-a-half on the way back.’ After loading his float with the 20 or so crates needed for the morning’s deliveries – Ian makes around 600 stops every day – he sets off on a seven-hour tour that takes him all the way across Wandsworth and back, on this occasion with me and a photographer for company. (In a milk float, three’s definitely a squeeze.)