• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

Bread Vehicles

I can only remember the bread man not his van. I was tiny he towered above me. A big strong chap with massive arms and a smiley face. " Bread missus" he said. A brown apron. He had rolled up sleeves. He had a big square wicker basket full of bread and he put it in Nan's wicker hamper basket on her step. Why are cow gowns so called please.

You never saw a cowman without one!

https://www.bidefordarchive.org.uk/featured-articles?id=1238
 
Last edited:
Lady P, we always got a tin loaf. Does anyone know why it was called that? Because it was baked in a tin or square shaped maybe?

Our bread came via the Co-op bread van. It was (if I remember correctly) green with gold lettering on the side. The delivery man (bread man) wore a brown cow gown and carried a very large basket over his arm. We always had a 'tin loaf' and I don't think it was wrapped. I just got a whiff of the bread! Funny what your memory can do.
 
Lady P, we always got a tin loaf. Does anyone know why it was called that? Because it was baked in a tin or square shaped maybe?
Nan and mum had bread tins for baking. Oblong. Narrower at the bottom.I remember milk loaves. Cottage loaves. One shaped like a corn sheaf for harvest festival. My Dublin friend used to like a Scotch pan loaf. Here.
 
In an old fashioned Auberge in France, we like to go, they have a 4 feet high wicker shopping trolley, barrel shaped with a walking stick handle, full of bread. The French sticks go hard after a day. They still fetch it everyday.
 
I am sure you are correct Mike, unwrapped bread . The basket carried by bakers also carried rolls and other things to tempt the housewife. ;) Large families would usually, I believe, just have the bread delivery - no frills of fancies if they could not afford it. Bread then, after a day or so went stale, now after a few days it often goes mouldy!! :eek:
RR, I remember those days, when bread would get to two days old my mom would make it into bread and butter pudding so as not to have to throw it out!
 
Bob Johnson, post: 688102, member: 157"
Interesting vehicle. I think these were electric vehicles (battery driven). Were these vans made by the same company that made the battery driven 'dustcarts' that Birmingham used in the fifties. I like the colour scheme. I am too young to remember these being used. I presume this van was used by the 'Birmingham co-op'. Looks like the registration is - NVP 144.
VP was a Birmingham registration.
[/QUOTE]


Morrison-Electricar was a British manufacturer of milk floats and other battery electric road ... By the early 20th century, the company was known as AE Morrison & Co, and They moved in 1938/39, to Webb Lane in Hall Green, South Birmingham. later changed to stacatruk,then to clark equipment,then to michigen plant. i worked there for a while testing electric trucks.
 
Does anyone recall Hickinbottom’s (or Hickinbotham’s) bread vans with a child dressed in Scottish attire and the immortal slogan - “Mother likes it, so do I” signwritten above.

Would the vans remain, as they did in the fifties, unadorned by additional rattle can scriptology?
John, I did not remember them but looked them up out of curiosity, apparently there are still some family members in the Birmingham area.
 
My dad was a milkman when I was born in 1955. He had a horse and cart to deliver the milk. He said it was quite good because you could get the horse to follow you along the street as you dropped off the milk.

I do recall horse drawn co-op milk floats in the very early 60’s
and this bloke was a milkman with the coop:grinning:
1593175566632.png
 
Bob’s query on Birmingham’s electric dustcarts and electric breadvans used by private firms.

The Co-op van in the picture is a Morrison, or Morrison-Electricar and it seems that the 1938 series of dustcarts were Electricar. I’m going to need to do some digging, but will try to find out when they merged. From memory, I think the older (1932?) dustcarts were made by Garrett, who also did trolleybuses at the time.

My mother occasionally got me to collect bread from Hindley’s on my way home from school. Wrapped in tissue paper, two small batch loaves cost 7d. (7 old pence for 2!) Yet Hindley’s stayed in business, this must have been pre 1959, when we had moved and I had changed schools.


Thanks for that John.
two interesting articles there. I didn't know that Garretts were involved in electric vehicle manufacture.
Thanks once again.
 
Cowgowns.

I have just spoken with a friend whose farming credentials go back at least 100 years, his father and grandfather both being dairy farmers. They both wore brown cowgowns for daily tasks, and apparently they were also known as slops, that’s a new one on me.

The farmer in my posted picture was at a show, so he was in white for the event.

My friend, having seen dairy farming from the inside, became an accountant.
 
Cowgowns.

I have just spoken with a friend whose farming credentials go back at least 100 years, his father and grandfather both being dairy farmers. They both wore brown cowgowns for daily tasks, and apparently they were also known as slops, that’s a new one on me.

The farmer in my posted picture was at a show, so he was in white for the event.

My friend, having seen dairy farming from the inside, became an accountant.
If they have legs in, in France they are salopettes.
 
Nico, it seems during my apprenticeship we wore something like that and it was called a boiler suit...which we apprentices thought is was another name for overalls.
They call dungarees salopettes too. Like children wore. And what painters wear..
 
My grandad drove the bread van around the time of the depression for Naokes's in Stourbridge. They gave him an hour off to get married. He was told to teach their daughter Betty to drive which he did. Then they sacked him.
 
Cowgowns.

I have just spoken with a friend whose farming credentials go back at least 100 years, his father and grandfather both being dairy farmers. They both wore brown cowgowns for daily tasks, and apparently they were also known as slops, that’s a new one on me.

The farmer in my posted picture was at a show, so he was in white for the event.

My friend, having seen dairy farming from the inside, became an accountant.
wise man:) last time i saw a farmer in a cow gown was in Heartbeat
 
Back
Top