Your daily pinta, delivered by handcart

01 July 2009

I am intrigued by the photograph of this young lady doing her milk round in south-east London, possibly in the late 1920s or 30s. There is no caption but the picture tells us much about the days when bread, milk, newspapers, coal and groceries were pushed around the district in carts which were used also as mobile shops.

The cart is owned by E Ash and Son, specialists in high grades of milk, of Alvey Street, Walworth. Mr Ash's customers would have come from the lively community around the Elephant and Castle, the Old Kent Road and Walworth Road - an area that once boasted a great common with houses on one side only.

Readers may know more about this type of handcart. It would have certainly been a familiar sight in Bromley, Bexley and district before and during the war. The common term for delivery had always been a "round" so this smiling girl was on her way round the district. The heavy coat suggests it was winter time.

In those days, milk and papers were always delivered in the mornings and there was an unwritten rule that they must be finished by 8am to avoid the morning traffic. Bread rounds were usually associated with the afternoons (in time for tea) and postal deliveries involved four rounds a day until the late 1920s when they fell to a standard two a day. This handcart or barrow was widely used. In fact, some remained in use in towns until the 1950s. The milk is stored safely in crates.

Walworth is well known for the high number of its famous past residents, including Charlie Chaplin, Michael Caine, Robert Browning and John Ruskin. I wonder if Charlie was on this young lady's milk round?