“Most milkmen had a lad to help most of the time, but they started to frown on it [in later years].  You’ll probably find many lads of a certain age who had helped the milkmen in Heald Green. He loaded up and set off around 5am, deliver, book in all the returns, and unload the empties.  On a non-collecting day, the van went back on charge and that was it.  But then there was the round book to maintain, booking up and carrying forward and he had to write it all down manually.  Each book lasted about four weeks, which meant copying all the addresses and orders from book to book.  So each week he’d copy a bit (to spread it out) and any changes along the way were marked in.  In the middle of the week he’d start calculating all the bills. He never used a calculator, it was all in his head.”

“Towards the end of the week when people were getting paid, he went to collect money.  Thursday morning, Friday morning, Friday night and Saturday morning.  He’d know certain people in his mind, who he could collect from at each time. Nearly all paid cash, the odd ‘posh’ person by cheque, mostly weekly as people were usually paid on a Friday. Then there was all the cashing up, banking, accounting and so on.”