I can’t drink cow’s milk. I don’t like the taste and it doesn’t agree with me. I used to take a wee drop of cow’s milk in tea, but over the past few years I’ve gone off it completely. I don’t drink any milk now, but I love butter and I’m starting to like cheese.
I started working as a milk girl when I was 12, for Dad’s friend, who had a round near where I still live, in Ladybank, a village in Fife. There were three or four of us, aged between 12 and 16, who’d jump off the van to deliver the milk in bottles in the morning before school and on weekends. I worked for him until I was 15. There was neither plastic nor health and safety in those days. I’d be picked up with a few other kids at 3am, then Dad collected me at 7am, in time to get ready for school. Every door took milk and I loved delivering it.
At 16, I tried working in a shop for a while and hated it. I liked being outdoors, so after that I helped Dad pick potatoes in the fields. Then I discovered I was pregnant. I had to take time off for the births of Catherine and then Robert, 13 months apart. There was no hanging about. Even then, I worked at home for Dad, taking calls for his new haulage business. I was lucky to have my children’s father and parents to help with childcare, and I soon returned to the dairy. After I passed my driving test at 17, I got my own milk round.
Both of my kids worked for the dairy when they were young, and Robert has stayed on – Catherine works nearby as a cleaner at a sheltered housing project. Robert’s my boss now. We get on fine at work. I even met my partner of 26 years at the dairy. He worked in the fridges. He has a different job now, though, as a mechanic.
I can’t sleep at night, so it suits me to start at 11pm and work through, finishing at 6am or 7am, depending on the weather. The first delivery is before midnight, but we try to make it later in the summer, given the heat, though some people have cool boxes or milk lockers. My customers mostly know my run and when to expect me. I see them less often now that we don’t collect money. Sometimes they forget I’m coming and ask what I’m doing in their garden. A few cats and dogs also meet us.
The glass bottles still rattle a bit on bumpy roads. I sometimes hide an early delivery out of sight – I shouldn’t say where – to prevent pinching. It’s rare, but it happens.
I’ve noticed the return to glass bottles in the last five to 10 years. It’s gone from glass, when I started out, to cardboard, then plastic, and now there’s a mix of all three. You have to be careful; you don’t want to trip over a kerb while carrying glass. I used to be able to carry five plastic bottles between my fingers in one hand. Now we have special hand carriers for 10 glass bottles. We deliver cow’s milk and all the alternatives, plus cream and eggs. Plant milks are popular and, of course, organic milk. I think, each to their own taste.
During lockdown my deliveries increased by a third. We were really busy with all the new customers. It meant a lot when people left notes saying “Thank you” and “Keep safe”. Children made drawings of cows and milk bottles in chalk on pathways, and left homemade cards.
I’ve just turned 64 and have worked for 50 years with the same dairy, with a few short breaks. I’ve stayed so long because I really enjoy my job. The customers are always very grateful, too. I don’t know if I’m the longest-serving “milkwoman” in Scotland, but I’ve only met a handful of women in the job. If I write a note for a customer, I always sign it “Davina”.
Every year I think I won’t work another winter, but the retirement age keeps increasing. I hate it when it gets cold – the dark mornings and the black ice. But there’s only been one time when the weather stopped deliveries that I can remember – that was the “beast from the east” in 2018.
I prefer the spring and summer. I love the daylight in the morning and the quiet, just the birds singing. My work fits in with my life, and it’s part of me. Even if drinking milk isn’t.
• As told to Anna Derrig
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