Gotta lotta bottle: doing the rounds with Britain’s last milkmen – photo essay

You often hear them before you see them: the unmistakable clink and tinkle of glass bottles in crates, and the low whine of the electric motor. Milk floats are a uniquely British sight, and an increasingly rare one, which is why the British photographer and cultural historian Maxine Beuret has spent 20 years documenting their use by dairies across England, as part of her project Two Pints Please.

Beuret, who calls herself a historian of the commonplace, has documented several quirks of British culture that are at risk of disappearing (or have since gone), including slam-door commuter trains, TfL’s Routemaster buses before they were decommissioned, and traditional shops in the Midlands including a sweet shop, a men’s outfitters and a hardware store. She first photographed an electric milk float while undertaking another project called Familiar Interiors of Leicester – her hometown – in 2005. As well as creating a record of the library, the hospital, the pub and other cherished places, she visited the local dairy, Kirby & West, and “instantly fell in love” with the milk floats, she says. “I loved the compact, functional design, clean lines, and fragile sense of history they carried with them.”

• Overlooking the yard at Parker Dairies

It’s the floats themselves that interest Beuret – and the milkmen who drive them (as yet she hasn’t met a woman who delivers milk, though she’d love to hear from them). “I don’t go into the politics of the dairy industry or farmers,” she says. “I’m interested in the heritage of having milk delivered, and also the beauty of the design of the milk floats.”

Beuret visited several dairies, from the Sidcup arm of Milk & More (one of the largest corporate dairies in Britain) to Cotteswold (one of the biggest family-run independents). Some of the milkmen she joined on their rounds start their shifts in the middle of the night, heading to the depot to pick up their vehicle before covering 40 or 50 streets. Beuret loves the way the floats are “open; there’s no door between the cab and the goods at the back, or the street, so the milkman can easily hop off, grab bottles and chat to people. Like a dancer, they move almost unconsciously: waving, talking to customers and people on the street.”

She saw first-hand how the milkmen were at the heart of their communities. “They see children born, grow up and leave home.” Steve, who has been delivering for Parker Dairies in Woodford Green, east London, for more than 40 years, worked closely with Beuret on the project over several years. “He is an extrovert who has become friends with his customers,” she says. “He prefers to deliver midmorning rather than very early, and he encourages people to talk about their life.” As he puts it himself: “You know when they’re having a bad day, and they know when you’re having a bad day, and once you get to know them you can talk about it. And it always helps to talk.”

Steve has on more than one occasion closed a front door that had been mistakenly left open by a customer, and has twice called out the emergency services because he was concerned about his customers’ wellbeing. He has become a local treasure; since 2019 he has turned on Wanstead’s Christmas lights every year, playing festive music from his lit-up float.

How did electric milk floats come to be such a uniquely British thing? It’s mostly down to government intervention: the Milk Marketing Board for England and Wales was established under the Agricultural Marketing Acts of 1931 and 1933 to stabilise the price of milk. Milk floats were a regular sight from the 1930s to the 1990s, part of the fabric of daily life, with numbers reaching their peak in the 1970s, with more than 50,000 registered in Britain.

• Lines of floats at Milk & More’s depot in Erith, south-east London

Now, Beuret estimates there are fewer than 400 electric floats used for milk deliveries in Britain – and no new ones are being made. In fact, the dairies barely have the mechanics to service existing models. Beuret met Bernard at Parker Dairies, who is training his grandson Huey to fix them like he does, and Bob who was at one point the sole mechanic for two dairies, one in Coventry and one in Cheshire. A year after she interviewed Andrew, a milkman for more than 29 years in Sidcup, his float was replaced with a light electric van. “They are disappearing before our eyes,” she says.

Supermarket milk in cartons and plastic bottles have long become the norm, with doorstep-delivered milk a niche service, though Covid lockdowns led to a brief boom – and increased eco awareness has brought a new audience, too. Then there are the families for whom it has always been the way to get milk; the elderly customers who pay with cheques and leave a note out with their empties.

“These dairies know they can’t compete with the supermarkets on price,” says Beuret, “but they can on service. The industry relies on loyalty. And that is part of the reason the milkmen are such visible characters in the community.” They build up their customer base by themselves: many of them have “bought their round”, securing the right to supply certain roads, and many have expanded the service to also offer orange juice, non-dairy drinks, bread and other essentials.

“When I mention this project to people, they always have a story,” says Beuret. “Perhaps somebody in their family was a milkman, or they remember a milkman from their childhood. Men remember helping the milkman as boys before going to school – they loved it, they didn’t get paid, most of them, they got some milk, but they just ran around. That shows its place in people’s  lives.”

Beuret is continuing to expand her project, next focusing on the north-west of England where doorstep delivery with electric milk floats has thrived. “I want to celebrate people’s hard work and dedication to keeping these places going,” she says. “Life doesn’t stay the same, it changes: I want to document the beauty of the everyday while it’s still here.”

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Kirby & West Dairy

Founded in the 1860s in Leicester, the dairy has grown into a large family-run company. The floats, designed and built in-house, are pictured at the dairy’s King Richards Road depot and in the nearby suburb of Western Park.

• A Kirby & West Dairy milkman on his round (top) and mechanic Pete (above). K&W company director Michael says of the design of the floats: ‘It’s the most simple imaginable. It’s made out of sheet aluminium and rivets and that’s about it. It’s like a giant Meccano set’

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Parker Dairies

An independent based in Woodford Green, east London. Started by milkman, John Parker, in 1986, it has grown to 20 rounds delivering from Romford to Westminster. Milkman Steve (pictured top and below) drives a 1984 Smith Cabac float (little changed from its original 1965 design). He says: “It makes the job worthwhile if you get to know your customers – I class them as friends. And since my wife passed away, I have had a lot of support, warmth, love.”

Colin has been a milkman for more than 35 years: “I walked into a milk yard when I was young and wanted to buy two pints of milk. The manager said, ‘I like the way you picked up those two pints of milk. Come in the office, come and see me a minute.’ I carried on and ain’t stopped since. I’ve had this float 10 years. This is my buddy – when it’s working, of course!”

Parker Dairies’ long-standing mechanic Bernard is passing his knowledge on to his grandson Huey. Huey says: “The milkmen know their vehicles very well. As soon as they feel it pulling or something, they just come and tell grandad: Get it sorted.”

Dean started at Parker Dairies a couple of years ago and is building up his round. “You are only a real milkee when you have done a winter and earned your stripes. The cold isn’t that bad; it’s the rain that is the issue. I am out in the day and visible on the float at least three days a week.”

• Clockwise from top: Parker Dairies’ Dean, Colin, Steve, and mechanic Bernard with his grandson Huey

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Milk & More

This corporate dairy provides doorstep delivery nationally. Andrew (below) works out of Milk & More’s Erith depot in Bexley and has had his round in Sidcup for 29 years. He says of his customers: “You can talk about superficial things like the weather. But if you show interest in someone and ask them how their week’s been or whatever’s going on in their lives, if you can remember everything they told you over the years, you’ve got that whole picture of that person. People’s kids have grown up and left home and they’ve gone on to have kids themselves.”

In 2020, Andrew’s float was replaced with an electric van.

• Top: Milk & More’s milkman Andrew and (above) pints waiting on a doorstep

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Sheldons

A family business, it serves Knutsford and the surrounding areas. Founded in 1965 with one round, it now has 18, delivering to more than 6,000 customers. It prides itself on “delivering Cheshire milk and produce and reducing unnecessary road miles using electric vehicles powered by their own solar energy system”.

• A Sheldons van out and about (top) and a couple of pints (above)

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B&A Dairies

The current owners of B&A, which is based in Coventry, bought the business round by round – a process that took 10 years, and ended in 1995. Their Crompton-Electricars milk floats were manufactured in the 1970s and are hand-painted cream and green.

Richard, B&A owner and manager, says: “We don’t refuse any form of payment. Elderly people still use cheques and they write them for £2 or £1. There are bank processing charges and it’s time-consuming, so we try to encourage people to write them for £15 and up.”

• A B&A float on a misty morning

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Cotteswold Dairy

Founded in 1938, and based in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, it has a small fleet of electric milk floats. Company director Roger Workman (below) built up the company with his father – it is one of England’s most prominent independent, family-run dairies. Roger’s wife chose the cream-and-blue livery in the 1970s to make their milk floats stand out.

As Christians, the family feels strongly that every staff member has equal value. “We’re all human beings,” Roger says. “I’m no more important in the job than anybody else.”

He explains how he helped his father as a boy: “I used to put cardboard discs on to the bottles. In the 1950s, that changed to a foil cap because the cardboard was deemed unhygienic.”

• Cotteswold Dairy company director Roger Workman (top) and some of its floats (above)

• Two Pints Please, by Dr Maxine Beuret and designed by Friederike Huber, is available from wansteadbookshop.com.