Milk Bottle Tops

[paul mann]

Can anybody mind when the milkman would deliver milk wi' different coloured bottle tops? Silver for a pint, I think, or mebbe a haff pint. Because there were gold and green tops too - and ones for orange juice bottles an' all. Some kids used to thread them on strings. I mind in the winter when it was cold and the frozzin cream in the bottle would push the cap up and you could tek it oot an eat it like an ice cream.

[Maggie/915]

Gold for full cream

Silver for not a lot of cream

And green maybe organic!

Just guessing!

[Brett]

I thought it was silver for full fat, red for skimmed.

Orange juice had a bronze/gold top...this may be more recent colours however.

[tonyg]

can anybody remember the cardboard milk bottle tops. we used to play a spinning game with them

[the lone ranger]

we used to play a game called corbs we would stand a bottle top up against the corb then put a bottle top in between our fingers then throw it at the bottle top to try to knock it down . what a thrill it was if you could knock it down . happy days

[wonky]

aye ,,remember them well.. we couldnt afford the gold top...lol..i remember me maw would wash them oot and save them up for christmas..jaysus we were poor..she would melt cooking choclate into them as a mold and dangle them from the tree with a bit of thread..wasnt that long ago really..lol..

during the miners strike she made a batch and asked me to hand them roond in the welfare and to be quite honest i was embarrased to say the least so i ate the lot myself.. they were rotten and i probably did the miners a favour in this case..it was that really cheap cooking choc from the co op of the eighties with about 3% coaco and the rest was lard..lol..i remember we would ocasionaly get a pint of steralised milk in a broon ale type bottle with a metal top..these tops really hurt when you put them to your brow and slam it for a roondy scar...mental...not doing that again...

sadly paul...my sister was one of those poor kids that would thread them on a string and wear them as jewlery...lol..

[tonyg]

yes you are right we used to have great fun with them

[Keith Scantlebury]

Gold for full cream

Silver for not a lot of cream

And green maybe organic!

Just guessing!

Nearly right (and you Brett) A couple of the farms I did my apprenticeship on had their own milk rounds and we used to bottle some of the milk. Another where I worked we used to bottle a few gallons for the dairy, I milked pedigree Jersey cows there. This was in the days (1970's) before the rules on selling unpasturised milk were introduced, these were brought in to finaly eradicate the possible spread of Brucellosis and T.B.

Heres what they were :- Silver top - Pasturised milk (from the dairy)

Green top - Raw milk (untreated straight from the cow as it were - obvioulsy cooled though)

Gold top - Channel Island milk ( as green top but from Jersey or Guersey cows- much higher butterfat

content, so far more creamier than milk from other breeds)

Someone was enquiring about Ashington farm, well they had their own milk round when I was there. They mainly only sold milk from the farm, by horse and cart. When the ban on selling raw milk came in they sold the round.

Can anyone remember milk from Eshott. ? They bottled milk from their Ayreshire cows, the bottles had the logo of two babies on them (in green - farm fresh). It was only genuine Eshott milk if the babies were on BOTH the CAP and the BOTTLE. Milk from Eshott was sent to London by train every day for the Duke and Duchess of Kent ( I think it was for them - may have been for the Westministers). Ayreshire milk is said to have qualities that are good for Asthma and Eczema sufferers. Ho Sanderson (and his family before him) had the Ayreshire herd and his brother Glen, a county councillor, had a Jersey herd.

Another famous local provider of farm fresh milk was the Graham family of Wylam Hills. They have now re-located to West Newham and no longer have a milk round , (they did install a pasturising plant at Wylam and continued selling milk from the farm for a few a years )

Another little story, I was the head herdsman on a dairy farm in Buckinghamshire. A Rabbi used to follow the milk tanker on its collection round and bless the milk from the farm tank into the milk tanker from each farm on that round. He would then bless the milk from the tanker into the milk silo at the dairy. All in the name of Kosher food for the Jewish community. The trouble was, the milk at the dairy was mixed in the silo with milk from other farms , non Kosher, making the Rabbi's efforts futile ... ha ha, ( apologies to any Jewish readers)

[paul mann]

Good stuff. Using the bottle tops for Christmas tree decorations in hard times is a nifty idea.

[Symptoms]

When I lived in London (I moved from there nearly four years ago) I alway used to get my milk delivered. Nothing unusual in this you might think, but it was. For years there were at least four 'milkies' from different daries delivering to just about every house in my street and gradually the number reduced to one as most folks just got the plakka flaggons from the supermarket and daries closed; in the end I was the only one left getting the stuff delivered. I didn't mind paying the extra for the convenience and to keep the tradition alive.

Keith is spot on with top colours. When I was a kid in Bedders my Mum got a couple of pints what she called "Jersey Milk" on a Saturday and it had the gold tops ... this milk was a weekend treat. For the rest of the week we had the 'ordinary' milk (now known as full milk) and this had the silver top ... the modern stuff is 4% fat but I seem to think the boyhood stuff had much, much more cream on the top - I can remember a good couple of inches of the stuff at the top of the bottle, not like the modern whitewash. I have no memory of semi-skimmed (silver and red top) being available 'back in the day'. I have fond memories of the bottle tops being pecked through by the birds in Winter. Our milkie in Bedders delivered by horse & cart. Oh, and the orange juice my Mum got had an orange (not gold) top ... I think you can still get this.

No milk deliveries where I now live so the plakka flaggons are bought in the supermarket; I get 'full milk' and Mrs Sym gets 'semi-skimmed' (Yuk!). Bottles of Jersey Milk, complete with the gold tops, are still available and I often sneak one into the house for my corn flakes ... Yum, Yum.

[keith lockey]

MILK!!! You's lot must have been rich. We couldn't afford milk, my mam used to water down a tin of matt emulsion and put it on some ear wax for breakfast and tell us it was sugar puffs. If we wanted proper milk she would stick cotton wool onto us with some wallpaper paste and send us into the farmer's field going baa baa until a ewe came along for us to suckle. My brother got a ram by mistake once and he's never been the same since. MILK!!! By heck, I never knew this was a rich-man's site, where's the wallpaper paste?

[Symptoms]

Emulsion paint! Wallpaper! Wallpaper paste .... luxury! We had distemper on our walls and the walls were made of cardboard

Edited May 2, 2013 by Symptoms

[Keith Scantlebury]

MILK!!! You's lot must have been rich. We couldn't afford milk, my mam used to water down a tin of matt emulsion and put it on some ear wax for breakfast and tell us it was sugar puffs. If we wanted proper milk she would stick cotton wool onto us with some wallpaper paste and send us into the farmer's field going baa baa until a ewe came along for us to suckle. My brother got a ram by mistake once and he's never been the same since. MILK!!! By heck, I never knew this was a rich-man's site, where's the wallpaper paste?

Did I shoot you once, for sheep worrying. ?

[Keith Scantlebury]

Growing up we always drank raw milk, as did my kids. Even now after 10 years away from farming I cannot really get used to drinking pasturised milk. I flatly refuse to have skimmed milk in the house. The one thing my kids would miss out on was Angel delight. You can't make it with raw milk as it tasted of soap, if they wanted it, the wife had to buy milk from the shop. My mother grew up on the family farm , Ulgham Manor. She was actually fed milk from her own cow, a Jersey cow that was bought especially for her (the rest of the herd were Dairy Shorthorns. Mind you, she was spoiled rotten, she later had her own pony, a sheep and a pig all of which eventually died of old age.

[Vic Patterson]

I remember the small milk bottles (1/2 pint, gill!) at school, flicking the tops like flying saucers! we used to buy milk-discs at the Co-op, and leave a note in the empty's if you were going to be away, and yes the spuggies would peck the tops to get the cream! our O.J. came in flat bottles with screw on lids.

[Symptoms]

Oh yes ... the milk-discs at the Co-op, although my Mum called them "milk-tokens". I seem to remember her using tokens maybe 10 to 15 years ago but don't remember why she stopped using them; for the last years of her life she got the stuff in plakka flaggons. Are Co-op tokens still used?

Ah ... gills of milk at school (Vic, these were 1/4pint) - always something to look forward to at morning break. The trick was to become the class milk monitor - just before break you'd go to fetch the class crate and always snaffle a couple of extra bottles for personal consumption. School milk was a fantastic benefit for us kids ... I wonder why it was stopped. Oh, yes - that vile witch Thatcher the Milk Snatcher ... stop, stop, stop now Sym!

Keith, after a lifetime of guzzling proper sippin' milk what's your waistline like and are your tubes not all blocked-up? My Granny, who lived 'till she was in her mid-nineties, always drank 'Jersey milk' and had what she called "best butter" on everything. This "Nan's best butter" phrase has entered our family lexicon, especially when Mrs Sym argues that Flora, that vile smear, should be the order of the day for my toast.

Edited May 2, 2013 by Symptoms

[wonky]

lol..quality thread..lol...back in the days when i was living over there i cycled to north blyth to the rows where a mate of mine was living and stopped for tea..his wife was a vegan and put soya milk in my tea..well let me tell you now..it was pure bowke..i have never tasted anything like it since and would never go near it again..

when my youngest was a baby he was sick in my mouth..taste the same..not good at all,at all, at all...lol

another use for the old foil tops was to fix the fuse in a plug..our whole house was running on foil fuses we were so poor..

and you tell the young kids of today that and they wont belive you...lol

[Keith Scantlebury]

Oh yes ... the milk-discs at the Co-op, although my Mum called them "milk-tokens". I seem to remember her using tokens maybe 10 to 15 years ago but don't remember why she stopped using them; for the last years of her life she got the stuff in plakka flaggons. Are Co-op tokens still used?

Ah ... gills of milk at school (Vic, these were 1/4pint) - always something to look forward to at morning break. The trick was to become the class milk monitor - just before break you'd go to fetch the class crate and always snaffle a couple of extra bottles for personal consumption. School milk was a fantastic benefit for us kids ... I wonder why it was stopped. Oh, yes - that vile witch Thatcher the Milk Snatcher ... stop, stop, stop now Sym!

Keith, after a lifetime of guzzling proper sippin' milk what's your waistline like and are your tubes not all blocked-up? My Granny, who lived 'till she was in her mid-nineties, always drank 'Jersey milk' and had what she called "best butter" on everything. This "Nan's best butter" phrase has entered our family lexicon, especially when Mrs Sym argues that Flora, that vile smear, should be the order of the day for my toast.

Sym , my waistline is measured by the acre so that will give you a clue what my tubes would be like. They could do with a flush of Hypochlorite. Vic, if you ever see our Kenneth again over there, he will tell you some stories of Ulgham Manor.

[Maggie/915]

Two people in the milk business in Bedlington.

[Canny lass]

Good stuff. Using the bottle tops for Christmas tree decorations in hard times is a nifty idea.

Not only the bottle tops were used Paul. I've worked in many hospitals where money for Xmas decorations was always a problem. We used to cadge the off cuts from the dairy. You could get rolls of foil, about 2 inches wide, with circles cut ot (the milk bottle tops). If you folded the foil in half lengthways you got strings of "icicles". Very pretty but you cut your fingers to ribbons making them.

[Canny lass]

can anybody remember the cardboard milk bottle tops. we used to play a spinning game with them

I remeber those. You pressed out a circle in the middle to open the bottle. We used to make pom-poms with them by placing two tops together and wrapping wool around them through the hole in the middle. When the hole was filled you cut around the outside edge, between the two tops and tied a piece of wool around the centre Before tearing away the bottle tops.

[paul mann]

Pure 'bowke' Luvly word. Forgot aboot the spuggies peckin' through the milk tops. Little buggers.

[Symptoms]

Same with me Paul ... had to trawl the memory bank for that long forgotten word (bowke).

Also, I have a vague memory of the tops being collected for a 'Guide Dogs for the Blind' appeal back in the 60s (maybe organised via Blue Peter ... but I may be wrong about that detail) - anyway, they were collected during our 'supping sessions' in class. Can anybody else recall this?

[wonky]

Same with me Paul ... had to trawl the memory bank for that long forgotten word (bowke).

Also, I have a vague memory of the tops being collected for a 'Guide Dogs for the Blind' appeal back in the 60s (maybe organised via Blue Peter ... but I may be wrong about that detail) - anyway, they were collected during our 'supping sessions' in class. Can anybody else recall this?

aye..i think blue peter might have had somthing to do with collecting them..certanly rings a bell..bowke is a classic word that still slips out on occasions..i have a geordie mate over here in ireland and a while back we went out for a few beers and he disapeared for a while to the toilet. when he came back he said.." av just been to the bog and bowked up. ah thinks av had a few bad pints of swally."..

well he cracked me right up...hes from dunston and i think they all talk like that..lol

[johndawsonjune1955]

Good stuff. Using the bottle tops for Christmas tree decorations in hard times is a nifty idea.

Not just bottle tops for crimbo decorations, paper too and painted, but bottle tops looked really cool