Zen and the art of the milk round
It came to me at about five thirty ey em this morning. I was lying awake in bed pondering whether to get up. The birds had started singing and clearly morning was well into its stride. However I was trying to decide whether nodding off again might be a prospect.
In the interim seconds or minutes before I did indeed drop off my thoughts turned to the art of delivering milk. I played with how this might be described, at least in a title:
Zen and the art of milk floats, Zen and the philosophy of milk floats, the philosophy of the milk round etc etc etc I decided that Zen and the art of the milk round would suffice as a working title. These things tend to stick
I don’t know anything about the milkman. His job entails very antisocial hours as far as regular social norms go. Presumably he is used to this. You do from time to time hear about people in such jobs who do it because it frees them up during the rest of the day to write their play or book or similar. Might this be the case here?
He turns up three times a week at ours, usually with two pints of milk but doubled up if the next delivery is due on a bank holiday. I was going to say he turns up like clockwork but his delivery times do vary significantly, any time between three and five ey em. Why is this? No pattern has emerged as yet. Is there back story here?
The job may be seen as very philosophical. A milkman can very much get in a zone when on his round. The same houses, the same order, apart, as I said from the bank holiday example, the same route. Other than the fact that people do vary their orders, family comes to visit etc, there is no need to think.
In one sense it is almost like being a long distance runner. You set off and get in the groove. Your mind is focussed on one thing, or indeed nothing, in order to get you around those twenty six miles without constantly wondering how much further is there to go or thinking what a waste of three hours fifteen minutes this is. Insert your own time.
Each house visited is different but at the same time similar in that it only takes a few second to drop off the milk before jumping back on the float and moving on to the next.
There are other factors of note. A milk round is a historic entity, at least in recent modern history. It brings with it the stability of familiarity. A comfort level in knowing there will be milk on the table at breakfast to feed the kids their porridge, or chocolate covered sugar bombs.
Part of me would like to know more about the man himself but this would probably destroy the enigma, the mystique around the function he performs. I don’t like to think of him as being part of a well oiled machine but there is an element of that. The customer facing element of a system that begins with cows grazing in lush green fields on a hillside in deepest Britain.
I wonder how long on average a milkman stays in the job? Is it something they can only do for a few years and then burn out or is it normally a job for life, a vocation. I’m not sure the work prepares you for anything other than delivering milk although employment opportunities could, I suppose, be available in the modern post covid logistics market.
Then you have to ask yourself what does a milkman do when he retires. How does he cope with the fact that he no longer needs to get up at two ey em to feed the horse before setting off on his round. Not that they use horses to pull milk carts these days. At least I never hear the clippety clop of hooves and the milkman arrives and departs. Also the dairy is fifteen miles away in Newark a horse would not be practical.
I daresay there is more to think about when it comes to the art of the milk round which will no doubt reveal itself in due course.
Ciao amigos.