I grew up with these on the streets.
.
I drove one for a living. For four weeks. And, fair play to Unigate, they didn't mind that I only had a Californian driving license.
If the motor cut out the brakes cut out. Which is not good if you are going up a ramp out of an estate, because it goes in to reverse and accelerates backwards very, very rapidly. At which point your average atheist learns to pray.
The yard at Herne Hill was fantastic fun. Kids used to break in through the roof to steal milk. Can you imagine such a thing happening nowadays? We had a man who had four heart attacks at the wheel of his float, and the man who simply drove in to his parking space at the end of the shift without braking. The front end of the float was destroyed and he used to bounce off a metal rail with the front wheel.
The wildest bit was my interview. My brother, who worked at the yard in Streatham, had told me to take my time about the maths test, and to get one wrong. We had half an hour, and it took me two or three minutes (work out 8 pints at 12 and a half pence each). I sat out the rest of the allotted time and then carefully went back and (in)corrected an answer. Passed with flying colours!
The pay was decent, but,
right at the interview I was told about the fiddles. One man had been delivering 12 pints a day to the back door of a convent in Clapham, and then running round to the front door and charging them for 20. For years! This was held up by the yard manager as exemplary.
After four weeks I pushed off to a six year stint on a farm in Buckinghamshire. If I'm honest, though, I've got more happy memories of my four week stint than I do of the succeeding six years.
We still have a float serving our street. The milk is twice the price of the supermarket.
No, you have much more hair!
