Mr. Bailey “The Milk”
I remember Mr. Bailey bringing the milk on a horse-drawn cart. He used to wear a tan canvas-type smock and leather gaiters up to his knees. The mothers would take out tin milk jugs and he would ladle them full, directly from the metal churn. Every now and again he would tell us that he had the "special" and us kids would run back home to get a cup. Then he would give us each a smaller amount of the very top cream from the milk, which we would drink right there. It was cool and simply delicious.
Thinking about the "special" milk, does anyone remember the "Morgan Sweet" apples? Once/year, in the late Autumn if I remember correctly, word would get out in Summervale that the Morgan Sweets were ready. They weren't sold in the store, you had to know-someone-who-knew-someone and usually you got one per person in the family. They were unbelievably sweet and delicious. Morgan Sweets are old West Country cider apples, but I have no idea where they came from in the Ilminster area.
PIG BINS - Hilarious
Oh, and thinking about the pig bins, does anyone remember the Guy Fawkes night when my Dad blew one up? He (Arthur Hooke) was famous in Summervale for home-made fireworks, since we couldn't buy any so soon after WW2. We used to start making them sometime in October, baking wood into charcoal in cans on the coal fire, getting sulphur crystals that were sold for sheep dipping and potassium chlorate from the chemist. We experimented with rockets and "pretty-ones", but the "bangers" were his speciality. One Guy Fawkes night Arthur made an enormous banger, put it in a pig bin near the Circle, lit the fuse and put the lid back on. It went off so fast that the lid jammed on for a moment and finally it blew off and the whole contents of the can exploded. There were bits of rotten vegetables and bacon rind flying everywhere and next morning the trees were festooned with all that stuff.
Thanks for those thoughts Adrian – what a child hood we had eh?
As for your Dad ……… What would he make of Health and Safety??
Happy VALENTINES DAY Everyone
JJ
X
No comments:
Post a Comment
If you have any knowledge of Summervale in Ilminster please leave a comment as I would love to hear from you.
Where it says - COMMENT AS - open the drop down menu & select anonymous if you don't have a google account.
Then DOUBLE click on post comment.You may be asked to copy a word thingy & then it comes to me for approval before it is posted on the site.
If you post anonymously PLEASE make sure you put your name in the comment so that I konw who it is.
Who will be first?