Good memories ( and not so good ) of cycling to School.

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Location
London
You're right, they were one third pint bottles.
That's what i vaguely remember.
But I also remember the term "gill" and wiki tells me that that is a quarter pint.
Of course the fact that some of us remember anything about this quaint thing marks us as of a certain age.
The removal of school milk was one of the first salvoes againt the post war settlement.
 

freiston

Veteran
Location
Coventry
That's what i vaguely remember.
But I also remember the term "gill" and wiki tells me that that is a quarter pint.
Of course the fact that some of us remember anything about this quaint thing marks us as of a certain age.
The removal of school milk was one of the first salvoes againt the post war settlement.
I only remember school milk coming in ⅓ pint bottles - all slotted into galvanised wire crates. I remember whisky being sold by the ⅙ gill from the optic.
 

Tim Hall

Guest
Location
Crawley
My primary school was only half a mile from home, so I walked there (on my own, obvs.), except when the week of Cycling Proficiency came along, and everyone in my year cycled there, parking their bikes in the (long) drive by just leaning them, unlocked, against the hedge. The day I passed I went for a ride with my Dad "round the block", then "round the block but using the next road over" then "round the block using the next road over after that."

I left that school to go to grammar school six or seven miles away and went by train and bus (free season ticket and bus pass), although I did go through a phase of cycling across town and parking my bike at some friends of my parents who lived a stone's throw from the station. I doubt it saved me any time though. Occasionally in the sixth form I'd cycle the whole way. The class room must have been minging, full of the smell of teenaged boy. I remember when I was in the third or fourth year, our English teacher, Paddy Carpmael, asked who would like to go on a bike ride at half term. I was up for that, as were a handful of others so we turned up with bikes. I don't remember any permission forms or mass of paperwork, just bikes and a pack of sandwiches. We went up Leith Hill, and Mr. Carpmael bought us all a half of cider in Coldharbour.

I was (and still am) in Scouts, and we'd organise ourselves to go off on a bike ride on Sundays. No leaders, just half a dozen hoodlums on bikes, more sandwiches, no helmets (they hadn't been invented), minimal (if any) tools. We had to knock on a door to borrow a spanner as one kid's rear wheel had shifted in the dropout and was fouling the nearside chainstay.
 

hatler

Guru
From 7 - 11 I cycled 0.6 miles to school and back twice every day (home for lunch) on my faithful Dawes Dapper.

Only real memories of the school cycle were pulling massive rear wheel skids on the grass verge just down from the school (until one of my mates took out the legs of one of the younger girls right in front of her mum, at which point this practice was officially frowned upon), having a parent complain when about 20 of us formed a peloton on the pavement, and turning up at home absolutely drenched at least once after a biblical downpour. Lunch at home was invariably a slice of bread, a slice of Edam cheese and an apple.

Oh yes. And getting a bollocking from my dad when I failed to put the bike away in the garage.
 
My senior school had a bike shed big enough to accommodate the whole field of the Tour de France, but hardly anybody cycled.

I didn't cycle, but was allowed to park my moped, and later my beloved 200cc Yamaha, in the bike shed.............

We had about an hour and twenty minutes for lunch, and the school was only a couple of miles from the edge of town, so on a nice day I would leg it from my last morning lesson, back to the common room to grab my helmet and leather jacket, then go for a ride for about an hour in the countryside before returning for the afternoon. Unless it was Wednesday, which was games afternoon. On Wednesday I would get registered for the afternoon then me and a schoolmate who also had a motorbike would ride over to the local sports centre to play the world's quickest and most perfunctory game of squash (in case the teachers checked up that we had attended), and then we would hotfoot it out to Brands Hatch which was only about 8 miles away, to catch the last couple of hours of the general practice afternoon. Cars in the morning, bikes in the afternoon, free admittance and pot luck as to what sort of bikes would be "testing". Often it was the works Kawasaki team (as the bikes were built by Boyers of Bromley) and sometimes Texaco Heron Suzuki as they were based in (I think) West London. Happy days!
Nice memories SD I must be older as I remember when Boyers raced Triumphs. I think I am correct in saying that Texaco Heron Suzuki were based in Beddington Lane Croydon at least when Barry Sheen was riding for them. Was the Saltbox Café Biggin Hill still open in your days.
 
I cycled to school on an 80s Raleigh Racer, and later on a Peugeot ANC Halfords race replica, probably about 5 miles each way from Burnage to Whalley Range in Manchester traffic. This was from about age 13 to 16.
You cycled in Whalley Range omg.
I say that because attending a residential union training course I went for a run one evening and when I got back I was greeted by a chorus of locals on the course telling me that you do not go running of a night in Whalley Range.
 
That brings back memories of the morning milk delivery at primary school - a crate of half pint bottles would be delivered to the classroom and left in front of the hot stove. By break time the bottles would be half warm and half freezing and those that had frozen would have a cone of snowy creamy water pushing up the foil top. I can still remember sucking the thick cream then the milk up a straw, some of it freezing and some warm. That has to be one of my strongest childhood memories.
Oh dear me you've prompted a memory that I didn't want. Like many of us I guess in the early 60s to raise some funds for a bike and later a motorbike I would help the milkman do his rounds.
This particular morning he had gone into a house to give a lady some sort of help, ok I was a naïve youngster, and the float was blocking the road of someone trying to get past.
So being the good Samaritan I decided to move it out of the way. I mean how difficult was it going to be, all you had to do was release the handbrake, push down a pedal and steer it !.
Hmm easy then !
Lets just say that when the milkman returned he didn't notice the float had been moved and that it might have been a little too close to the car it was parked next to.
Probably later held me in good stead when it came to special awareness when I was learning to drive.
 
Location
Kent Coast
Was the Saltbox Café Biggin Hill still open in your days.[/QUOTE]

I am not familiar with it, but then we used to ride out to The Halfway Cafe on the A20 at Harrietsham for our meet-ups.
 
That brings back memories of the morning milk delivery at primary school - a crate of half pint bottles would be delivered to the classroom and left in front of the hot stove. By break time the bottles would be half warm and half freezing and those that had frozen would have a cone of snowy creamy water pushing up the foil top. I can still remember sucking the thick cream then the milk up a straw, some of it freezing and some warm. That has to be one of my strongest childhood memories.
Yes I also think they were 1/3 of a pint bottles
 

Gravity Aided

Legendary Member
Location
Land of Lincoln
I rode to and from junior high school on my Schwinn Varsity. A fine bicycle, but I lost control and had an off in the midst of a seldom used intersection on some loose gravel, and skidded across through the intersection. Luckily, it was the early 70's, so I was wearing jeans as well as cycling gloves. I escaped unscathed.
 

Lostmiles

Active Member
Location
Scottish Borders
The school run on the bike. A blast from an early sixties past.
Great stuff in the morning free-wheeling down Foljambe Road with tie and blazer flapping all over the place but doing the homeward run in the afternoon; it was hands under the straight handlebars for more pull and standing up on the pedals to crank up to the top of the hill. I had no gears on my bike. Shirt and blazer ringing wet with sweat because of the haversack full of books strapped to my back.

I cycled quite a bit as a kid out to Matlock and back or Fox House, Owler Bar with sandwiches and a GLASS pop bottle with water in it. Weighed a ton in my bag and it usually squashed my potted meat sandwiches. I once cycled to Hucknall Air display from home in Chesterfield and back. The mind boggles. I got fleeting glimpses of aircraft during the afternoon from standing on the top of a little hillock outside the aerodrome fence.
Doing the weekly Saturday shop on the bike with 4 loaded shopping bags on the handle bars and a full rucksack on my back for the return journey. Thankfully it was all down hill from the little Co-op shop to home. Like others have commented I have no recollection of having a puncture........as a kid.
 

Milkfloat

An Peanut
Location
Midlands
I used to cycle-train-cycle to school. Luckily back in the day when trains had guard vans and you could just sling your bike in with all the others. There were 4 or 5 of us that did it daily and we each had a station when it was our turn to open the window and stick our heard out to check that the bikes were not being nicked. I was lucky in that Dumpton Park station was my turn and on the way home the curve of the platform meant you often could not see the van - so no need to bother. Many a time at school my tyres were let down or lights nicked, being an idiot I never carried a pump or took the lights off.
 

Katherine

Guru
Moderator
Location
Manchester
I finally remembered to photograph a bottle of school milk and it's interesting to see that they are still a one third pint rather than a rounded up or down metric measurement. Under 5s get the full cream blue top for free. The rest of the school pay 15p for the semi skimmed green top.
IMG_20170316_122246758.jpg
 
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