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School Milk

I hated milk, so I used to hide the bottle behind my back and tip it down the nearest drain. Even now my coffee is still black, I can only just cope with a bit of custard or a cream cake.
 
We used to put our milk bottles by the gas fire to warm them up. We also used to have chocolate covered biscuits which we held by the fire to melt the chocolate and then lick it off!! Does anyone think we'd be allowed to do that now with a Health and Safety being so rife nowadays???!!!!!!!
It was considered an honour to be asked to fetch the straws for the milk. They used to come in grey boxes of 500. I was asked to fetch them on one occasion. The teacher thought I'd been gone too long and I can distinctly remember looking up the stairwell to see her and my classmates looking down 3 flights of stairs at me trying to shove those straws back into their box. The bottom had fallen out of said box at the top of the stairs..... You just can't believe how far 500 straws can go when airborne.......!!!!!
 
School milk certainly put me off drinking it for years , at least until I was about 30yrs old. By then I had moved to the country side and took up working on surrounding farms. One day I remember being so thirsty I took a cup of milk from the bulk tank of that day's milking. It was absolutely delicious, chilled, not sterilised or homogenised. A completely different drinking experience. I still don't like drinking every day milk though.
 
I see this is an interesting old thread come to life.

I have to say that I looked forward to the daily milk at school and always asked for extra as there was always some over - fussy kids or those not at school that day. Ice on top was no deterrent. A serious mistake, of the highest magnitude in my view, was the withdrawal of milk to some schools.

I have always loved milk and have been fortunate in living in the south west where milk at one time was much more creamy that some of the non dairy areas of the UK. When visiting Cambridgeshire in 1979 I was able to compare pint bottles of milk which were still in glass bottles at that time. The Devon milk had more cream on top and was a darker colour.
 
Like anvil man, I hated milk as a kid. At Highters Heath Juniors a wagon would deliver the milk and the driver would stack the crates in the playground, in the sun. By the time the little bottles got to the kids the milk was starting to smell like cheese and it put me off for years.

When I first joined the army, we came off the drill square on the first day and clutching our mess tins, were marched into a huge building containing a table,(6 foot GS), with a tea urn and a tray of doughnuts on it. The doughnuts were freshly baked and still warm and the milk was freezing cold and I loved it. I was converted !
 
anvil man said:
School milk certainly put me off drinking it for years , at least until I was about 30yrs old. By then I had moved to the country side and took up working on surrounding farms. One day I remember being so thirsty I took a cup of milk from the bulk tank of that day's milking. It was absolutely delicious, chilled, not sterilised or homogenised. A completely different drinking experience. I still don't like drinking every day milk though.
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When I was a baby we lived with my grandmother in South Worcestershire for a while and the farmer used to come round with the milk - he would fill your jug up, no milk in bottles there at that time!

I used to like the school milk and we would help ourselves to another bottle at lunch time if there was some left in the crates by the stairs.
 
I can understand people being put off milk if the choice was the ghastly sterilized product favoured in large towns cities. The stuff in cardboard cartons that is available to day is equally as bad to the taste.

As late as the mid 1950's an aunt of mine. living in The Potteries in the north Midlands, had milk delivered by a lady with a horse drawn milk float complete with churns. She ladled milk from the churns into a large jug provided by my aunt.
 
Alan, I also don't like sterilized milk, however, used in custard it's wonderful! I was brought up on 'Pas', but now I always keep a bottle of UHT sterilized for custard and milk puddings, it's very creamy.
 
Alan, We used to have stera in tea and pas for drinking. I visited my Grandad one day and he asked if I would like a glass of milk which I was chuffed about until I started drinking it and it was stera. Yuck!!! I was a polite little girl and managed to drink it all but, never again. On the few occasions we went on holiday Mom always complained that we couldn't get stera for her cuppa, but I didn't. Anne
 
Shortie said:
Alan, I also don't like sterilized milk, however, used in custard it's wonderful! I was brought up on 'Pas', but now I always keep a bottle of UHT sterilized for custard and milk puddings, it's very creamy.
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Yes. the carton milk is good for making custard - as long as it is Birds.
 
Hi

Yep School Milk and School Dinners in the late 1940's Great in the Winter remember when it was freezing those Milk Ice Lollies School Diners no wonder we ran to school.

Happy days

Mike Jenks
 
Milk was not always pasteurised and I thought that pasteurisation was used to prevent TB from being acquired from the milk. Not a bad thing surely. Steralised was used by my parents for tea mainly and it lasted longer before going off in days when the pantry was under the stairs and refridgerators were seen only in the American movies...used by film stars. The little note in the bottle neck was 1 ster/2 past. I don't know about rice pudding but I can make a pretty mean one with Past...and a couple of eggs. Also hard to get in wartime periods.
I always drank my school milk and remember Mrs. Thatcher being called "school milk snatcher" later. She survived. I think the milk is good for most small children but since I have been plagued with kidney stones, I was told to avoid it.
 
I remember going on a caravan holiday and being sent to the shop on site for I think a loaf of bread, as soon has I spoke the woman who ran the shop said “tell your mother we have Birmingham milk {sterra} in stock.


Nick
 
HI Guys
its a preferance of choice stera . i love it .i drink stera today from the botle or glass brought up on it from the day i was born ;
drank gallions of it and used it in my tea ; pass does nothink for my cupa tea always used the stera
but may i add i also drink pas from a botle or glass it was only when i worked for midland counties dairys as a milk man around handsworth in the golden years
that the gold top channel islands milk was introduced that i got converted to drinking pass i used to have abottle a day on the round and if i did not fit one in during the day i would most certainly have one at the end of the day when i would finished out side the red lion soho rd where i would do my count and check and rearrange my float for the lads back at the yard puting crates of stera and pas crates seperated which made it easy for the lads unloading baclk at moland street
and i may had i was a milk monitor at st mary school at the avenue aston in my days of schooling and in the winter months the milk would be frozen and we had to dragg them across the play ground and bring them in and distrubute around the classes what got me was it was nice to get that cup of coco for break time
and by the after noon you got to drink the milk but also whatgot me some one more or not would nick my pencil whilst i was out dong the class room deliverys
miss the teacher alway gave out to me as i was always asking for a pencil but getting back to milk
stera is great espeialy for tea as it adds colour best wishes astonian;;
 
As i have previuosly stated i was a milk monitor at st marys school in the fifty but getting back on track you said you found it disgusting the only disapointing thing for me was to walk across the huge play ground and carry numerous grats across to the main building and like you walking the lengh and breast of all the class rooms for there distribution then when i got to my class room only to find the milk in the little bottle was frozen stiff you could not drink it until it defrosted i enjoyed it then but for those whom never went to st marys school what you got there where no other school done was all the kids used to get a hot up of chocoate in the mornings and got your milk in the afternoon every morning with out fail all the year round but its only in those wicked bad and deep snows we used to get in those winter months all those years ago two or three feet of snow struggling to get those crates across the play ground to the main building , oh and one more problem i had every day after collecting the milk and delivering get back to my desked some one always nicked my pencil the little tow rag it must have been the same kid i reckon teacher was always telling me off for looseing it
 
I never had a problem back in the 50's with school milk , I'd have seconds if available . I used to go to St Peter's off Broad St , if my memory serves me right during the summer we used to get orange juice instead of milk on Fridays. Same size bottles a 1/3rd of a pint , I was a milk monitor and became quite proficient with the milk bodger for the straws
 
I too was one of two milk monitores at Asheville Avenue infant school , I either made the hole in the top with a lead pencil ,! or put the straw in before taking it around the class,oh what a job
 
Have removed several posts, including one of my own, which were becoming somewhat political
 
Williamstreeter said:
I never had a problem back in the 50's with school milk , I'd have seconds if available . I used to go to St Peter's off Broad St , if my memory serves me right during the summer we used to get orange juice instead of milk on Fridays. Same size bottles a 1/3rd of a pint , I was a milk monitor and became quite proficient with the milk bodger for the straws
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Oooo a milk bodger ? That was posh I had a lead pencil
 
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