Mr. Hocking, the Milkman

The Milk Boy    - taken from Through My Eyes: On Becoming a Teacher, available from Amazon


It all started when I heard Doris, the tall milk lady with the very loud, shrilly voice, talking in the kitchen with Mum.

Doris was very well known in the neighborhood. She worked for Stewart Hocking, She drove a big, noisy, dark-blue Morris J-Type van, with an open back filled with crates full of milk bottles. Doris delivered milk, cream, eggs, and butter in the neighborhood. She came to Gwavas Street every morning, dropping off a one-pint bottle of fresh dairy milk on our granite doorstep. When Mum paid Doris her weekly milk bill on Saturdays, she made a pot of tea, then she and Doris swapped gossip before Doris drove down to WherryTown.

I heard Doris tell Mum that Stewart, her boss, had added more deliveries on her milk round.

“I now gotta to go to Long Rock village,” she said, crossly, “and deliver eight new streets.”

“I have enough to do as it is – don’t want no more.”

“Ain’t gitting no younger.”
“ I need some help, ’Azul, don’t you think?

My ears pricked up. There it was, the opportunity I was looking for. My wishing rock had worked again. Of course - I could be a milk lad.

I went into the kitchen.

“Doris,” I asked, appealingly, using my eyes as well as my voice, ” Can I help you on the milk round?”

“Please?”

“I have to get a job.” “I’m a good worker.”

 ”Ain’t I, Mum?”

Surprised, she looked at me and then at Mum. “Course you can. Can ‘e, ‘Azul?”

Doris smiled.

“Have to get up early, though, you know, Johnny. About 5 o’clock in the morning is when I load up and then start delivering. I can pick you up, around 6 o’clock, I think, when I get to Gwavas Street.”

“Could get you home again at around eight o’clock.”

“I need help every day, though, Not just weekends. Fancy being a milk lad before school?”

“Up early?  Every day?”“Can you do that? Your old man be ok with that?”

Doris looked at my mum.

“Will Arthur let him, ‘Azul?”

Doris laughed out loud - and I knew then that she wasn’t taking me seriously.

“Hey, I can do it. I can, you know.”

“Mum, tell her, I can, you know.”

“We’ll see,” said mum, somewhat thrown by the conversation.

 “Better ask your Dad when he gets home tonight.”

Squeezing my wishing rock and my amber in my pocket throughout the day, I asked Dad over teatime, just as he was lighting his cigarette. He exhaled the perfect smoke ring, licked his lips, thought for a bit, and then, with a serious look in his eye, looked at me.

“If you think you can do it, do it. A milk lad.  Mmmmmmm.”
“ Try it for a week and let’s see how it goes!”

”School starts soon, though, and you will have plenty to do then.”

“Homework, school, come first, don’t forget.”

“Try it for the week.”

And so, with no counter argument at all from either Mum or Dad, at 11 years of age, I became a milk lad, working with Doris, the milk lady.

Thank you, wishing rock. You’ve done it again, I thought, you've answered my prayers.

I went to bed early on Sunday, telling Jimmie not to wake me up when he came to bed.

Mum switch on my bedroom light around five in the morning, and I quickly put on my clothes, had some tea, and waited for Doris to arrive. I was ready and as nervous as three kittens.

In the pitch dark, we delivered half and full pint bottles around the streets of Penzance, and, around seven o’clock, we sat and watched the sun rise beyond Penzance harbor as Doris sucked on her first Player’s cigarette of the day.

We finished delivering milk around eleven o’clock, cleaned out the van, and I got home just in time for a midday feast of bread, marge and treacle.

Over the next four days I soon learned how much milk and what extras (cream, butter, eggs) our customers around the town wanted – a half pint there, two pints here, a pound of butter for the Donnisthornes on Wednesday, six eggs on Thursday for the Rowes, a quart of Cornish cream on a Friday for Mrs. Johns.

Friday, I learned, was payday for those who worked. Saturday, predictably, then, was pay-yer-milk bill day. That meant an entirely different routine. After delivering the milk first thing in the morning, we went back to those houses that didn’t leave their money out on the doorstep.

I didn’t like this routine as much as weekdays because I didn’t want to be seen by anyone I knew.

When that happened, I felt uncomfortable, even a touch ashamed, to be seen delivering milk, thinking I’d get teased.

Even though I had no reason to think that people lived so differently from the Paull family in 23, Gwavas Street, or any of our neighbors, I discovered on my first milk-lad Saturday, they did. People lived very differently – a lesson about life that would later have bearing on my teaching.

I was fascinated, and, in awe of the opulence and grandeur my eleven-year-old eyes saw in some homes, especially the big three-story houses on Clarence Street and Morrab Road.

Equally, I was taken aback when I saw the inside of some of the overcrowded and dingy little houses near the harbor at the bottom of Queen Street.

Doris, I think on purpose, sent me into one small cottage in particular to collect the week’s milk money.

“YOU can go in that ‘ouse. I don’t like it. YOU go in, Johnny.”

 “Half a pint every other day. ‘Cept Sundays. That’s all she has.”

“ Just knock, then go in.”“She’ll be there and she’ll give you the right money.”

“ No change.”“Pick up the empties.”

“ They’re greasy.” "She don’t wash out her bottles.”

 I knocked on the door and, following Doris’s advice, pushed it wide open. I stumbled in the dark and almost fell over the bags of rubbish inside the hallway. The front room was dark and smelly. Threadbare sacking covered the windows.

A lighted candle flickered on a small table, giving just enough light for me to see an old lady, half covered in a blanket, sitting in the corner by the fireplace. Her straggly grey hair and deeply lined face were covered with a thin veil. There were white and grey cobwebs hanging above her head.

She was wearing long white gloves. Her long nails were poking through the fingertips.

Without looking up, she held out one of her hands, and growled,

“Where’s Doris? Who are you?” I was speechless.

 “Milkman,” she said, “ ‘ere’s the money. Teck it. Just tek it.”

“ Then go…..”

“Don’t you look at me……stay away, you hear?”

.Without a word, I took the money out of her hand.

Her voice crackled. “Teck yer money. GO!”

I forgot to pick up the three dirty milk bottles that were lying near her feet.

Doris, cigarette dangling from her mouth, was waiting for me in the van.

“Well?” she asked, with a knowing smile.

“You ok?” “Got ‘er money? And the bottles?”

“See ‘er? Was she by the window? In ‘er chair?”

“ Faces the sea front, you know.”

“See all the spiders dangling in their webs?”

“Big buggers, ain’t they?”

Doris continued: ”That old lady lost her ‘usband at sea, off The Lizard. She ain’t moved a thing in that ‘ouse since!”

”Put on her wedding dress and she ain’t moved since!”

“Told me she’s waitin’ for ‘er ‘usband to come out of the sea.”

I had never seen or heard of anything like that before. Who looks after the scary old lady, I wondered?

Who gives her tea and dinner? How long is she going to wait for her husband?

“OK, Johnny Paull, now go to that ’ouse over there” said Doris, pointing to a creamy white door.

“They owe quite a bit. See if there’s any money on the kitchen table.”

“Empties. This time, don’t forget the empties.”

The door was half open, and, not knowing now what to expect, I shouted, “MILKMAN!”

I went straight in, intending to drop the milk bottle on the kitchen table where Doris said I should find our money.

Four little boys, two of them naked, were screaming loudly, in front of the open fire. A boy about my age was standing in the kitchen, trying to put food on some plates. He turned and shouted at me:

“Money’s there, milkman.”

Then,

“Hey, Johnny, that you? Johnny Paull? You ok?”

“Din’t know you were a milk lad.”

I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was Philip, from St. Paul’s school.

“These are my brother.” Said Philip.

“ Keith, here, he’s the oldest. He’s five. Five and a bit.” “ Jack’s four. Tom and Pete are twins.”

“They’re buggers when they want to eat.”

“You brought their milk?”     “ Good, Let’s ‘av it ‘ere.”  “Then they’ll have their cornflakes.”

“Ma’s out.”“She’ll pay you next time.”

When I told Doris I knew Philip, she told me that his Dad went to look for a job over a year ago, and no one had seen him since.

“Mum’s on the social, you know.”

“Goes out early in the mornin’ see wot she can find.” “Philip’s bringin’ up those kids.”

“Here. Go and leave him some free cream. Kids’ll like it.” “I allus leave a bit extra if his ma’s not in.”

I knew now why some boys at St. Paul’s Junior School were so badly clothed, some without socks, and often hungry when they got to school. They, like Philip, were poor.

I knew now why Dad worked so hard every hour he could to give his family what they needed.

When we finished the morning rounds, we unloaded our empties. Doris filled a bucket with hot soapy water and scrubbed the inside of the van, and left it ready for the following day. After we counted and checked the money, Doris gave me three one-pound notes and one ten shillings note, my first pay. Ten bob a day.

When I got home, around half past one, I was so excited: “Hey, look, see how much I got.”

I gave it all to Mum then told her about the poor old lady, sitting all alone in the dirty house.

“And I saw a kid I know from school. Philip Washer. He looks after all the kids.”

Mum listened as I told her about all the different houses I had seen. Then she smiled,

“Don’t worry.” “Here, take this,” she said, and gave me back the ten-shilling note.

The kettle began to boil.

“Here. Drink your tea and eat up.” She handed me my plate covered with baked beans sitting on top of a slice of Gendall’s bread, covered with margarine.

I finished my beans and gulped down my second cup of hot tea quickly. As Mum cleared away my plate, I ran to Stone’s corner shop to buy two bags of Smith’s crisps – one for me and one for Philip - and a bottle of Corona. I then ran up the street to see John Stevens and bought his Rinso Book of Knowledge. “Can use that in the grammar,” I thought.

Finally, I went to the newsagent’s and bought my first ever copy of The Eagle, a weekly comic that described the adventures of Dan Dare and his rocket trip to Mars and other planets.

I ate the crisps on my bed, looking through The Eagle, then my Rinso Book of Knowledge. It had everything in it that I wanted to know. It even had colored pictures of different kinds of spiders. I wondered if any of them were the same as I saw in that old lady’s house.

I put five shillings in an old battered OXO tin that I hid under the bed, and put the remaining three shillings and sixpence in my pocket, next to my amber.

Sunday, I learned, was a different milk delivery routine again. Dads didn’t go to work on Sundays and families had breakfast together. I could smell the fried bread, bacon and eggs as I collected empties and put down milk, butter and clotted cream on the granite doorsteps around Penzance and Treneere Estate.

When we reached the old lady’s cottage, I took in the half pint and put it next to her.

“Milk boy? Put it there.”

“Teck empties. You left ‘em yesday.”

“Hello,” I said, “I know. Sorry.”

“You ok today?”

I handed her a wishing rock and a note I’d written that said: “Let me know if there’s anything I can get for you.”

Before she could say a word, I left.

The next stop was Philip’s house. I

 left the milk and the bag of crisps I’d bought for him on his doorstep.

The following Saturday, the old lady gave me two letters.

“’Ere. Post these, will yer?”

This was the start of another Saturday routine until the day she was taken to hospital, never to return.

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[1] A bob is a shilling.