Morrison Electricar

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 jumped in and without sitting down aimed the float at the mini roundabout in front of the station. As I went into the rounda- bout I realised that I was going a little fast to be going into a 180 degree turn. To make matters worse because I was standing up I was thrown off balance and my weight came down more for- cibly on the accelerator. A milk float with its attendant batteries is too heavy to turn over but I had not been particularly meticulous in stacking and restacking the crates on the flatbed of the float and as I careened around the roundabout one of the crates toppled of the back of the float and crashed onto the road.

There was broken glass everywhere though fortunately not too much milk, the uppermost crates being for the empties. I brought the float to a halt and went back and surveyed the dam- age. I scooped up as much glass as I could without lacerating my hands and kicked the rest into the gutter and then I made off back down Station Road a little more sedately, vaguely aware of the stares of commuters heading for the London train. I lived in dread for the next couple of days that complaints would flood into the depot from taxi drivers and motorists about broken glass in Station Road causing punctures. Fortunately there were none as far as I was aware.

An even more embarrassing accident lay in wait for me a few weeks later. The last task of the working day before driving the float to the charging station was to offload the empties. Once again I was a little late in getting back and a large tanker was already parked at the loading bay. I pulled in front of it and then had to back up to it to get my crates off. Space was tight but I was only going to be a few minutes. So I got very close indeed to the tanker and then set about getting the crates off. Split splat. Done in no time at all. I jumped into the cab once again and in full emulation of Ron’s technique stamped on the accelerator and reversed rapidly into the tanker. Once again broken glass everywhere, this time the brake and the rear side lights of the float. I had had to switch to reverse to back up to the tanker but had forgotten to switch to forward before leaving the cab.

From Electricar Manoeuvres, Me Neither