Co-op dairy

Between about 13 and 17 I did a paper round. I didn’t earn much but it kept me just solvent. Then we moved house and I had to give up my round. This left me desperate for money but I managed to get a job with the Co-op Dairy in my summer holiday. The intention was that I should relieve the secretary while she took annual leave However I was also relief for the warehouse staff as well and in the event I spent more time in the warehouse than the office.

I say it was a dairy but more precisely it was a warehouse and distribution site for bottled milk; bottles brought in by truck several times a day from Fole nr Uttoxeter. The bottles were handled in stacks of five crates with each crate containing 20 bottles. These stacks weighed well over 100 kilo’s and I viewed them with some trepidation. I wasn’t particularly strong although nearly full grown. However it all proved very easy once I had the knack. The stacks were moved by something like a tall sack truck which had two prongs at the front which slid into the top of the bottom crate. Lever up and it was fairly easy to move around.

Stacks on the incoming trucks were dragged to the edge of the truck platform, picked up from the loading bay and wheeled either to a big cool room for pasteurised milk or into the body of the warehouse for sterilised. At that time milk was normally delivered to the home daily and about 20 milk rounds left about 6am to deliver returning from about 11am onwards to be unloaded. The town deliveries were from hand controlled electric trucks with deliveries further afield ranging up to large vans.

I soon found there was a trick to unloading the incoming trucks. The driver would break a bottle spreading the milk as lubricant .over his truck bed which was one metal sheet. The stacks were then slid using a hooked tool at the bottom while holding the top for stability. This was harder than moving a stack by truck but still something I could manage.

The warehouse staff were two older men and one young in his twenties. The younger man was continually bemoaning his lot as he had a young family to support and he found money very tight. This contrasted with some of the roundsmen ( in charge of money collecting ) who seemed rather well off. Smart new motorcycles seemed to be their expenditure with an element of competition between them. The older warehousemen were more phlegmatic taking every opportunity to have a rest between truckloads. One would settle down always saying RIP.( rest in peace )

This was my first experience of the world of work. I generally started later than the others so I only arrived at start time a couple of times. I only went on rounds a time or two.. The roundsmen knew their rounds precisely and would issue instructions at every stop. These also included stops for tea at friendly households. Deliveries included two types of pasteurised milk ( Channel Islands from Jersey/Guernsey cattle and ordinary ), sterilised which had a slightly different shaped bottle and orange juice.  I recall being quite shocked by the poverty of some of the mining villages. I knew my family were relatively poor but some were absolutely impoverished.

My first day as replacement secretary was awful, almost a disaster. I discovered I wasn’t properly prepared. I had virtually never used a telephone before ( they were  uncommon in working class houses ) and I couldn’t get used to its continual interruptions. The final insult came at the end of the morning. It was a Sunday and the custom was everybody went home early as soon as the essentials were done. I was struggling to add up the returns by calculator amid continual interruptions. The warehouse deputy manager lost patience with me, seized the information and added it quickly in his head. I checked later and he was right.

When I returned in 1961 my money needs were greater than ever as I was courting Annette. She took a summer job with  another nearby part of the Co-op. Sometimes she came to the dairy to get milk for tea breaks. I had to endure some joshing along the lines that she couldn’t last the day without seeing me. Incidentally the previous year I had turned up to ask her out on our first date wearing scruffy clothes after working in the warehouse. What her mother thought of me I shudder to think. However the important part was that Annette said yes.

The most humiliating incident came on my second stint. We supplied a milk bar only a few hundred yards away. I was sent to deliver a stack of crates. By this time I was fairly adept, even overconfident. In order to reach the customer I had to cross a road which was on a slight slope. I found a portion without a kerb so I was at right angles to the slope. The stack tipped sideways. It was far too heavy to hold upright and the bottles fell with many breaking and milk flowing down the gutter. I had to return hangdog and confess my mistake.