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Midland Counties Dairy

So as a boy when Wacaden, came to the new housing estate at Bartly Green, by horse, to deliver our Milk, they had to travel from Birmingham center, they must have started around 2 am, in the morning and some of those winters were cruel in those days, heavy snow, don't remember them missing.
 
paul stacey said:
So as a boy when Wacaden, came to the new housing estate at Bartly Green, by horse, to deliver our Milk, they had to travel from Birmingham center, they must have started around 2 am, in the morning and some of those winters were cruel in those days, heavy snow, don't remember them missing.
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There was probably a local Wacaden milk depot, there were several around the city. The Nova Scotia Street dairy was the main processing dairy.
 
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I’m sure Wacaden dairy was in Hubert Rd or Tiverton Rd. Selly Oak. I think there was a small dairy in Bournville which was taken over by Midland counties
 
Grea said:
I’m sure Wacaden dairy was in Hubert Rd or Tiverton Rd. Selly Oak. I think there was a small dairy in Bournville which was taken over by Midland counties
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Wacaden had a depot at 1135 Hubert Rd. Bourneville Model Dairies were at 36 Selly Oak Road up to 1961 when it was absorbed by probably Midland Counties.
 
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Thanks, What a relief, even though to think that with a horse, from Bornville or Selly Oak was still quite a pace to Bartley Green, for the poor old horse, but the roads were a lot quieter in the 50's.
 
My husband, Ray Horton worked as a roundsman for MCD at the Swan Depot on Yardley Road.
Couple of guys he worked with were John Nimmons ( unsure of spelling) and a lad called Geoff …..
many an afternoon on finishing work, they drove to Barry Island for a bit of fun, stayed until late, drove back and went straight out the following morning with no sleep !
Be great to get in touch with John and Geoff for Ray to meet up and chew the cud.
 
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negritaspider said:
Don't really know where to put this!
My dad worked for them in the fifties...
I'd wait for him to come home on a Saturday, with a block of icecream wrapped up in white ice in newspaper!!
The ice would be immediately put into a bowl so that it would bubble and pop, and the icecream was naturally eaten up!!
He would park his truck (front end without trailer) at the top of the road - all the kids were jealous!!
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I worked at midland counties Perry pont garage servicing the electric milk floats from 1968 to 1973 and visited all the depots to carry out maintenance work and repairs on all the trucks, we had Bedford HA Viva vans, Moggie 1000, and CA Vans spent many hours in those. Passed my driving test in BVP 168 Morris minor van. Happy days.
 
I worked at mcd Perry barr garage repairing and servicing electric milk floats from 1968 to 1973 we serviced all the depots from there and kept the wheels turning. Spent many hours on them, Smiths ,Wales and Edwards, Morrison Electricar, Brush and C M's
 
Eric Gibson said:
Midland Counties had a depot on the Kingstanding Road in the 40s 50s. I think one of their guys got killed by a bus just by the junction with Cranbourne Road.

I had a part time job on the Wacaden horse and cart milk round in the late 40s around the Kinstanding area. E.
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We had a depot opposite the Deers leap pub on the hill, the wind was raw up there in the winter servicing the trucks and topping up the batteries with distilled water
Eric Gibson said:
Midland Counties had a depot on the Kingstanding Road in the 40s 50s. I think one of their guys got killed by a bus just by the junction with Cranbourne Road.

I had a part time job on the Wacaden horse and cart milk round in the late 40s around the Kinstanding area. E.
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We had a depot opposite the Deers leap pub on the hill on Queslett Rd topping up the truck batteries with distilled water was freezing in the winter with the wind howling across the fields
 
Vivienne14 said:
Does anyone remember Midland Counties Dairy? I worked on the night shift there one summer as a student. It was then the ice cream factory and was quite an experience. Vivid memories include working on the "piano" named after the action a person needed to take to push the choc ices across onto a moving conveyor belt. Also remember the white wellies, the floor constantly running with water and the frequent fag breaks. Health and safety would have a field day today!! Seem to remember the money was good and quite a few people worked there in the summer and at the Valor heaters in the winter.
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Came across this early advertising sign for Midland Counties Icesmidland counties.jpg
 
24 July 1972. Started student summer temp. job at Midland Counties Ice Cream factory at northern end of Corporation St. (between Bagot St & canal) after being directed there when I went to Birmingham Employment Exchange to "sign on" as available for work.
Students taken on with (unhygienic) beards work in big freezer storage room where temp. kept even colder by a wind blowing. First day on a manual (washing) mangle of rejected (not filled fully, wrapping not folded properly) Family Bricks, so ice cream not wasted but squeezed into a bucket & returned to Family Brick machine. Then supervised 2 machines producing small wrapped ice creams that go between 2 wafers. Also made raspberry ripple on a stick. Liquid ice cream made on floor above & piped to machines which include a very cold 6ft long rapid freezer unit that makes moving liquid just solid enough to be moulded/wrapped by machine before packaging up by machine girls & onto a conveyor to big freezer room. Initially while working, ate a lot of lovely soft ice cream but so much put off ice cream for year's afterwards. Closing down machinery in wrong order stopped liquid ice cream in the rapid freezer unit which would freeze rock hard & stop production whilst steam lance used to unblock rapid freezer. Once or twice had to change overhead liquid ice cream supply pipes during shift which meant liquid ice cream running down arms into armpit. After giving notice, moved for final couple of days onto removing lids from empty catering tins prior to being filled with ice cream. The lip of very tight lids had to be struck very hard on a table edge to release them! Skilled job if you wanted to avoid injury to hands/body.
Worked there 5 weeks for about £92.
 
Some of the jobs sound very familiar. Had forgotten about the mangle ! I have to say those ‘bricks’ that were recycled really put me off ice cream. The squeezed out ice-cream could be sitting around for a while before it went into the vat for recycling.

I was also a student at the time, and to me the pay was good. We did long shifts but with quite a few ‘smoking’ breaks. I got through a fair few books (and fags) on those breaks.

Working factory shifts was hard work but it was an eye opening experience for me. Not just in the way factories work but I really improved my repertoire of foul language during that summer.

Viv.
 
negritaspider said:
Don't really know where to put this!
My dad worked for them in the fifties...
I'd wait for him to come home on a Saturday, with a block of icecream wrapped up in white ice in newspaper!!
The ice would be immediately put into a bowl so that it would bubble and pop, and the icecream was naturally eaten up!!
He would park his truck (front end without trailer) at the top of the road - all the kids were jealous!!
Click to expand...
deeer!!!!! AM I TO ASSUME THE THE FAMILY BLOCKS ARE THE SAME ONES MY DAY USED TO BRING HOME WHEN I STARTED THIS THREAD IN 2009,,,:sob::sob::sob::rolleyes::rolleyes: It's a wonder that we're still alive after the amount us kids ate!!!!! If the standard of food cleanliness was sooo bad in the 70's then what was it like in the 50's???!!!!
 
An interesting group. No details of the background to this photo, but presumably these were the visitors, some wearing plus fours, so maybe they’d played a few rounds of golf. Perhaps the purpose of the visit was to see manufacturing process at MCD ? Photo looks about 1930s/1940s (?).

Viv.

F595D3ED-D720-4CF1-A5FE-01CF2B4F7145.jpeg
 
I remember my Dad giving me the money to nip over the road to Northcott's grocers (who stocked Midland Counties Ice Cream) and bring back a brick of ice cream and some wafers for us. They also did Raspberry Ripple ice lollies, which were my favourite ice lollies, by a country mile.

1681468349510.jpeg 1681468405081.jpeg 1681468471577.jpeg
 
paul stacey said:
So as a boy when Wacaden, came to the new housing estate at Bartly Green, by horse, to deliver our Milk, they had to travel from Birmingham center, they must have started around 2 am, in the morning and some of those winters were cruel in those days, heavy snow, don't remember them missing.
Click to expand...
My grandfather was a milman with a horse and cart , his name was Joseph Smith
 
The large Midland Counties Dairy fleet standardised on Morrison-Electricar trucks from the mid-1950s.100 were delivered in 1955 for the Birmingham depots.
1695975013974.jpeg
wythall museum
 
I wonder if this device was extended to other companies as many used horses for their haulage use. With a company such as Midland Counties Dairy it must have received favourable publicity.
 
Hope I'm remembering correctly but I think it was MCD who produced the ice cream rounds that fitted into the cornets to make a super ice cream treat.I think the rounds were called Melarol or something similar.
When now travelling in the countryside and seeing those round wrapped bales of straw in the fields i can't help but remember those ice creams.
Second childhood ? I never left the first !!
Tojo.
 
Here's your Melorols ! These are from 1935, but I remember these much later, unwrap the roll and pop it into a cone. I expect once the soft ice ceam from ice cream vans came out, the rolls became less popular.

Screenshot_20240126_154211_Chrome.jpg
Source : British Newspaper Archive
 
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Hello Viv.
Shame no MCD nowadays,I just don't remember ice cream tasting as nice as a cone with a melorol.
And what about those tubs with the little wooden spoon ?
All now gone,just like Mason's Pop.
Gonna sign off now before I well up and have to get me hankie out!
Regards.
Tojo.
 
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