I remember the Co-op bread-man and the milkman coming round with horse-drawn trailers in the 1950s in Alum Rock. As mentioned above, the horse knew where on the kerb to stop while the Co-op man just got on with either the bread or milk delivery. I too was enlisted complete with coal-shovel and bucket to collect the 'rose fertilizer' for my grandad before anyone else got it.
And I remember 'the last day' of horse-drawn deliveries, when the horse was given carrots at every stop - we were assured he was retired to a field somewhere after his working life was over, I hope that was true.
One additional memory, which I'm sure others would share, concerned the milk cart. On the tail end stood a milk churn, which I found out contained milk direct from the farm, i.e. unpasteurized, because some of the older customers still wanted this. One day when the milkman arrived, my nan came out of the house and demanded that my mom bought a glass of this milk and gave it to me to drink. The 'old wives tale' was apparently that a glass of this untreated milk would protect the drinker for ever against TB (!!). We normally had sterilized milk (even more boiled that pasteurize ). My mom refused to give me any, my nan insisted, and the end of the story saw nan get her way, the milkman produce a ladle/measure from somewhere, draw a pint from the churn and pour it into a cup (provided by nan) with me being told to drink it....I got away with drinking about half of it, and, have not (to date, and now 70+) had TB..so it must be true....
Did anyone else experience the same?
And, nan's Co-op number was 98703...as others say, you never forget it!