Bricolage

The main focus of the rather abbreviated period of training thereafter was to learn how to use the Setright machine, the device that printed the tickets. The Setright was a marvellous steampunk contraption all dials and hieroglyphics with a name that seemed to be a triumph of branding. But I subsequently discovered that there had in fact been a Mr Setright who had invented the device and simply given his name to the  company. This was no doubt one of the more obscure examples of nominative determinism, much more unlikely than Igor Judge eventually becoming Lord Chief Justice after passing through that phase of his professional life when he was Judge Judge. From Setright Conundrums, Me Neither

Furthermore it was also well known that many of the roundsmen had houses where they might get a cup of tea or coffee with the lady of the house. And it would appear that some of them, got even more than that including, improbably as it seemed to me, Ron. I lived in a kind of queasy anticipation that I might soon be feebly fending off some Highsett Sophia Loren in a whirl of négligée. Alas I never got so much as a glimpse of winceyette pyjamas. From  Electricar Manoeuvres, Me Neither Amazon  paperback. Kindle edition  here . Image courtesy Dr Julian Paren, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42413097

I was fairly doubtful about this plan. What if we passed an inspector en route which was far from improbable at that time of morning. Speedy thought for a bit and then suggested that we avoid the city centre altogether. He reasoned that an inspector would have no reason to be on duty on The Backs for example. He sketched out the route we would take and then we’d resume our schedule at Mitcham’s Corner. I wasn’t even sure that there was enough clearance for a double-decker bus on the route he was suggesting but I could see that the longer we debated the issue the later we were likely to be. No doubt my lack of moral fibre was connected to the monumental hang-over I was nursing so I agreed weakly, put up the Not In Service sign and hid myself in the back of the bus. A Bristol Lodekka LFS 45 is faster than a Morrison Electricar milk float, but not much. Despite that fact Speedy managed to coax an impressive performance from the lumbering beast and we made up most of the time lost d

This meant that each morning I drove by Cherry Hinton Hall. Since 1963 this had been the site of the Cambridge Folk Festival. The Hall was not actually part of my round but I was aware from the many posters that the festival would be taking place during my Cherry Hinton tour of duty. The line-up was right up my street—Arlo Guthrie, Loudon Wainwright III and Alan Stivell. I was starting to work out ways that I could do my round and still attend the festival. In the end common sense or apathy won out and I had to resign myself once again to observing gilded youth frolicking in a sylvan setting while I got my finances in order. At least I got to sleep in a comfortable bed. From Electricar Manoeuvres, Me Neither Amazon  paperback. Kindle edition  here .

On my own everything seemed to take more than twice as long. To begin with I got into a terrible muddle loading the float. The different kinds of milk were indicated by aluminium foil bottle-tops—silver for whole milk, red for homogenised, red and silver for semi-skimmed (rare in those days) and green for unpasteurised. And a few people required sterilised milk which came in a different shaped bottle with a crown cap like a beer bottle. So it was important to get the right quantities on your float. Unfortunately I had forgotten to make this calculation before arriving at the depot, so I was trying to add up quantities from my log book whilst parked up at the loading-bay much to the annoyance of my colleagues . From Electricar Manoeuvres, Me Neither Amazon  paperback. Kindle edition  here .

Image courtesy Don Reid (donreid103 on Flickr) The vehicles we had were Morrisons. The top speed of an electric milk float is nothing to write home about although its acceleration from 0-15 mph or so is considerable. There was no gear stick, just a switch for forward and reverse, an accelerator pedal, a brake pedal and a hand brake. The cab had a windscreen and a roof but was open at the sides. One of the things I had admired about Ron was the way he drove standing up with the log book in front of him and a pencil behind his ear. And I concluded one of the reasons why he got around so quickly was the way he would jump in the cab and stamp down on the accelerator whilst checking on his next delivery. My attempts to emulate this advanced technique brought me to grief on two occasions. On the first of these I was parked at the top of Station Road pointing towards the station. I had just delivered to the Station Hotel on the other side of the road. I crossed back to the float jumpe

I began a cursory study of memoirs and was irritated to find that Gore Vidal had already bagged Palimpsest, a title I had been toying with. But as I grumpily leafed through the book I discovered that Vidal had had his own qualms about the genre. In fact he claims in the introduction that he had never previously entertained the idea of writing a memoir because he did not consider himself his own subject, but now he was not so sure. From Brought to Book, Me Neither