No Milk Today

Traditionally, in British society, the milkman has been a family friend, a sex symbol and a cheerful chappie. He has been the eyes and ears of the community, and his genetic legacy has supposedly passed into the lineage of housewives.

This collection of folk tales about milkmen covers the history of the job and the milkman's everyday experience. The book is structured by the milkman's working day. It starts with the alarm-clock and ends with the milkman returning home in search of sustenance and tender loving care. The book is less about changes in the dairy industry and more about the work experiences of the people who have delivered milk.

Many milkmen are featured: Chris Frankland delivered over eight million pints before he retired at seventy-four; Alistair Maclean drove two million miles across the north coast of Scotland in fifty years; and Tony Fowler, an award-winning Leicestershire milkman, helped to put over fifty people in prison.

For more than thirty years the author has collected milkman stories through oral testimony, newspaper archives, anecdotes, diaries, books and more formal interviews.

Praise for the author:
Barnsley: A Study in Football, 1953-59 (with Ian Alister, Crowberry 1981)

'A rare example of folk history . . . a work thankfully free of sick parrots, bulging nets and exclusive revelations.' (The Yorkshire Post)
'riveting, dreamy, passionate, valuable and stuff of a past era which must not be forgotten . . . I read it in an all-night session.' (Frank Keating, Guardian)

Cricket's Strangest Matches (Robson 1990)

'Ward has an eye for the unusual and nicely dry style.' (Sunday Correspondent)
Three Sides of the Mersey (with Rogan Taylor and John Williams, Robson, 1993)

'. . . a labour of love. Built from copious interviews with players, club staff, and fans going back to the Twenties, it provides a permanent record of a 32-part series broadcast on Radio City last season. It's a compendious portrait of Liverpool's passion for football, and an endearing social history along the way.' (Independent)
Armed with a Football (Crowberry 1994)

'A riveting read for the maverick fan' (Independent)
Kicking and Screaming (with Rogan Taylor, Robson, 1995)

'Borrowing the straightforward oral history technique favoured by Studs Terkel...read more...