Milk; Fags And The NHS

Over the years to make money I had many paper rounds and also delivered milk. However, I always considered myself to be more of a paper boy, than a milk boy. You tended however to make more money as a milk boy and also received better tips. And if one was on a milk float it was better fun-less solitary because one was in company.

That said, I had a number of milk rounds over the years, including working for Douglas Blades, more of which in a future blog. At times I worked for a small dairy shop at Boroughmuirhead, Bruntsfield and also Berry's Dairy at Falcon Road West. These shops were there for decades and were family businesses. For delivering the milk I had a two wheel metal barrow. It was a solid, heavy old thing; Sean Connery had probably used the same one back in 1940!

Delivering The Milk
(Peter Hoffmann)

On weekdays there were four to five crates of milk to deliver; on the Saturday there was an extra crate which also accommodated some cream and butter. My round encompassed the old tenement flats around Bruntsfield Place; whereas the Berry’s Dairy job covered Morningside Road and the streets off. 

On some occasions in the New Year whilst we were still on holiday Iain Hoffmann, Les Ramage, Ali Douglas and Paul Forbes sometimes accompanied me-for a laugh and to liven things up we would drop one of the tetra packs from the top floor of one of the tenements. It had to be dropped in a certain way, so that it fell like a stone with a corner taking the impact-the noise broke the deep silence in the building and of course there was milk everywhere-we raced down the stairs quickly before disturbed residents opened their doors.

What was better fun was working for Edinburgh&Dumfrieshire Dairies on their battery powered three wheeled vehicles. These were open sided, to allow the milk boys-usually three of us, to hop on and off the vehicle, with our little four or eight pint carriers. We’d dart in and out of the Morningside houses collecting the empties and replacing them with gleaming full bottles of milk. Up until then I presumed all that one could buy was silver top milk; however, some of these fancy houses received red top and also gold top-the latter, being Jersey milk.

This work was more fun because one was in the company of others, rather than being on your lonesome. That said, on icy cold mornings my hands would get painfully cold, almost reducing me to tears. What was deadlier however was going down the incredibly steep Craighouse Avenue with its right angle turn into Balcarres Street. I always thought the vehicle was going to over-turn; especially when the roads were covered in ice. To counteract the threat of this happening, all the boys had to stand on the driver’s side or else vacate the vehicle.

A good friend who worked regularly for the Dummy was Geoff Hunter.He lived at Oxgangs Farm Avenue. I worked on and off at different times with him-often after he had inveigled me away from the loneliness of the long distance paper-boy!

Geoff Hunter

I haven't seen Geoff for almost forty years. He was a nice lad-a very able student in our class at Hunters Tryst School where he was never out of the top three and who went on to Boroughmuir Secondary School too. I hung about with him on and off over the years. We scived off school together-being in different classes at the Junior School we had to fabricate headaches and temperatures at the same time! On another occasion we scived off school to go the Radio 1 Roadshow in Princes Street Gardens; we'd visit the Pit Stop Cafe at Chesser where my grandfather footed the bill for our bacon rolls and orange juice; we played table tennis together at the after school club; and also attended Boys Brigade together at Barclay Church, Bruntsfield each Friday evening retiring with others afterwards to Demarcos Cafe at Tollcross to enjoy their fabulous coke floats and hamburger rolls. Geoff was a smoker and got me into the fags too for a few months. Today he's Head of Personnel at NHS Edinburgh and is still a talented table tennis player and goalkeeper.

Running Away To Join The Circus!

In our class at Hunters Tryst Primary School there was a girl called Audrey Milne. She came from a good and well meaning family who stayed at Oxgangs Farm Loan. Audrey had several older brothers and a younger brother. I think they may have had their ups and downs as a family-their father possibly died when Audrey was quite young, although I may be wrong on this.

What was impressive was the way the family made a community contribution. Audrey's mother, Mrs Milne, was the Akela of the local Cub Pack which I attended each week-was it the Edinburgh & Craiglockhart 113th-but no, I've just been told (21st November, 2016) by John McDonaugh that it was the 105th and even better John's discovered from the mists of time an absolute treasure of a serendipitous find, a photograph of our cub scout pack from March 1966.

Back Row: Extreme Left 'Akela' Mrs Milne; ?; Norman Stewart; Harry Rookyard; Graham Robb; John McDonaugh; ?; Terry Workman; Mrs Milne's son
Middle Row: Michael Hanlon; ?; Peter Hoffmann; Stephen Drysdale; ?; Stewart Martin; Geoff Hunter; ?
Front Row: ?; ?; John Ritchie; John Kay; John Pantling; ?; Alan Gray

I only ever made the heady height of Seconder of a pack-Norman Stewart however was a Sixer, which meant he headed up a small group of six boys; I was therefore only the assistant to the Sixer. Clearly he had leadership skills I could only dream of-or perhaps he just behaved a lot better than me.

The Cubs were great fun and a few of us from The Stair attended for several years including Michael Hanlon and Iain Hoffmann.

Like most children and young people who attend youth clubs, sports clubs etc you never really give any thought, consideration or appreciation that Mrs Milne was giving up a significant chunk of her valuable time, not just to run the Cubs, but also the training and planning and organisation required too-it's perhaps a bit late in the day to thank her.

Some of the Cubs had an armful of badges-I'm afraid the only one I ever achieved was the Collectors' Badge. Collecting stamps did it for me. Earning the badge was quite rigorous-I had to travel down to a lady's house at Craighlockhart to be interviewed and asked some tough, probing questions.

Whilst I never got above assistant manager level at the Cubs or did well with the badges, I fared a lot more successfully at Bob-A-Job week-ironically the Cub and Scout movement fared less well! There was a prize for the Cub who collected the most money-one lad was absolutely amazing-completely out in front of the rest of us. I can't recall how many names and jobs that each card held recording jobs done, contributions made and signatures, but it was more than twenty-therefore at least a pound should be raised.

Greenbank was always a fertile ground for me-I had reasoned that few of the Hunters Tryst Cub Pack would venture that far and the residents were quite well off. What I hadn't considered was that I had probably strayed into the territory of a Greenbank/Morningside Club and Scout troop.

Once a job had been completed we issued a sticker to the household who would thereafter place it in their window-we weren't supposed to call at a house which had received a previous visit by a Cub, however I tended to feign ignorance.

Anyway, covering Greenbank, I soon managed to complete a card. I proudly visited Mrs Milne to get a second card and enjoyed the praise which I received from her. I was doing well with the second card when the attraction of all those bobs grew too much for me-my blood sugars must have been too low, well that's my excuse! Anyway, I'm ashamed to say I spent a few bob and came up with a cock and bull story about losing the second card.

I had an opportunity to make amends, but I'm afraid Billy Smart got in the way. I had managed to win the Edinburgh Cubs 100 yards Championships for our troop-the event was held at Campbell Park, Colinton. I was thereafter selected to represent the Edinburgh team in the Scottish Cub Championships. However, my grandfather had received free tickets to see Billy Smart's Circus held at Murrayfield-it clashed with the other event. I let Mrs Milne down again and preferred to go the circus instead!