Milk churns were once collected daily by lorry
Richard Fonge writes:
Following a very wet September, we are now as I write into a sodden October. Late September, October is the time for planting winter corn and obviously little has been done due to the wet, and with the prospect of drier weather poor, we could have a serious situation on our hands.
Therefore with little happening round the parish, I thought I would re print an article written for the Oxford Times by my mother in the 1980s, of social history.
Mother graduated from Reading University in 1930 and went to work for Miss Beatrix Havergal at Pusey near Faringdon, before they moved to Waterperry in 1932. It was here at this school of horticulture that many renowned gardeners were trained and taught. Waterperry gardens are well visited today and one of Mother’s proudest achievements was to establish the herbaceous border, still a major feature. After her marriage to my father in 1937 they moved to near Woodstock, before moving again in 1947 to Stuchbury Manor Farm with their family.
ARTICLE WRITTEN FOR THE OXFORD TIMES BY MRS PEGGY FONGE
This is the second excerpt from the social history of Waterperry, written by Mrs Peggy Fonge and based on her husbands reminiscences. We hear how the morning milk reached the station, despite the unusual hazards that sometimes frightened the horses.
I drove daily to the station in the heat of summer, in rain and snow and freezing winds. In very frosty weather I had to take the nails out of the horses shoes and put in studs.
Talking of special footwear, it is difficult to think that there was once a world without gum boots. We had a man working for us called Ernest Hill, and one day he came back from Oxford with the first pair of wellington boots seen in the district.
The popular song at the time was “Felix keeps on walking, keeps on walking still”. and after that day, Ernest Hill was known as Felix and one always spoke of Felix Hill.
A curious thing happened one winters’ morning when I was taking the milk to Wheatley station, for as I left Ledall and was going towards the crossroads between the trees, Tom, a shy, nervous horse, backed in the shafts and snorted and refused to go on.
It was dark of course, but by the light of the carriage lamps the road, as far as I could see was clear. But no amount of coaxing would make Tom go on, so I went through a gateway into the field on my right, coming out into the lane again some distance on, and so I proceeded to Wheatley with the milk.
When I got there I was chaffed by other men bringing their milk for not getting up early enough in the morning, for they had obviously thought I had pushed Tom along too hard for he was quivering and all of a lather.
I told them how he had refused to go along the Common Lane.
Then on my return from the station, I discovered what it had been. There were people coming up to the crossroads and more coming down from the village, for there, on the other side of the big chestnut trees bordering the road, a huge balloon had come down. It wasn’t in our path for Tom to see, but he had either seen it through the trees or sensed that it was there.
I was not to have this daily journey for much longer, for in 1927 our milk was collected by lorry for the first time.
In the early 1920s a West Countryman called Eli George Burton had come to Oxford and set up a dairyman’s business in Stevens Road, Headington, which was then still separate from Oxford. He also had stables in Stevens Road adjoining the dairy for the ponies that drew his milk delivery floats.
George Burton was the first man to collect our milk by lorry from Park Farm for his dairy in Headington, and the lorry was a smart new Manchester, a make now defunct.
Rather faded newspaper photograph of “the smart new Manchester”.
Richard Fonge
