Confessions of a Milkman Read online

  ‘It’s terrible what you milkmen do to get business,’ she says, squirting another load of foaming suds into the bath. ‘You stop at nothing, do you?’

  I don’t answer her at once because it had never occurred to me that there was a business angle to what I am doing – or about to do … There was I, feeling a bit guilty about being on the job when I should be on the job, and all the time I am on the job … with this happy thought bubbling through my mind I step forward briskly …

  CONFESSIONS OF A MILKMAN

  Timothy Lea

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Introduction

  Chapter One

  In which Timmy has a disturbing dream sparked off by his new profession.

  Chapter Two

  In which Timmy begins to get the hang of his new job under guidance of fellow milkman, Fred Glossop, and obliging customer, Mrs. Nyrene Gadney.

  Chapter Three

  In which brother-in-law, Sidney Noggett, expresses an oblique interest in becoming a milkman.

  Chapter Four

  In which Timmy goes on a course and has his eyes opened by well-stacked instructoress, Betty Tromble.

  Chapter Five

  In which Timmy gets to grips with Mrs. Farley who has got a bit behind – she has not been paying her bills either.

  Chapter Six

  In which Timmy becomes involved with Sue Dangerfield of the Milk Marketing Board and a dissatisfied customer.

  Chapter Seven

  In which Sid gets an idea of how to make a bit on the side and Timmy’s girlfriend is got at.

  Chapter Eight

  In which Timmy is taken out of himself in unusual circumstances by a lady called Hermione.

  Chapter Nine

  In which Timmy becomes sucked into the vortex of the Balham Self Service Society and gets involved in an unusual competition.

  Chapter Ten

  In which Timmy is interrupted whilst getting to grips with a new customer.

  Chapter Eleven

  In which Timmy and Sid take Daisy to the Festival of Milk.

  Also Available in the Confessions Ebook Series

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  INTRODUCTION

  How did it all start?

  When I was young and in want of cash (which was all the time) I used to trudge round to the local labour exchange during holidays from school and university to sign on for any job that was going – mason’s mate, loader for Speedy Prompt Delivery, part-time postman, etc.

  During our tea and fag breaks (‘Have a go and have a blow’ was the motto) my fellow workers would regale me with stories of the Second World War: ‘Very clean people, the Germans’, or of throwing Irishmen through pub windows (men who had apparently crossed the Irish sea in hard times and were prepared to work for less than the locals). This was interesting, but what really stuck in my mind were the recurring stories of the ‘mate’ or the ‘brother-in-law’. The stories about these men (rarely about the speaker himself) were about being seduced, to put it genteelly, whilst on the job by (it always seemed to be) ‘a posh bird’:

  ‘Oeu-euh. Would you care for a cup of tea?’

  ‘And he was up her like a rat up a drainpipe’

  These stories were prolific. Even one of the – to my eyes – singularly uncharismatic workers had apparently been invited to indulge in carnal capers after a glass of lemonade one hot summer afternoon near Guildford.

  Of course, these stories could all have been make-believe or urban myth, but I couldn’t help thinking, with all this repetition, surely there must be something in them?

  When writing the series, it seemed unrealistic and undemocratic that Timmy’s naive charms should only appeal to upper class women, so I quickly widened his demographic and put him in situations where any attractive member of the fairer sex might cross his path.

  The books were always fun to write and never more so than when they involved Timmy’s family: his Mum, his Dad (prone to nicking weird objects from the lost property office where he worked), his sister Rosie and, perhaps most importantly, his conniving, would be entrepreneur, brother-in-law Sidney Noggett. Sidney was Timmy’s eminence greasy, a disciple of Thatcherism before it had been invented.

  Whatever the truth concerning Timothy Lea’s origins, twenty-seven ‘Confessions’ books and four movies suggest that an awful lot of people share my fascination with the character and his adventures. I am grateful to each and every one of them.

  Christopher Wood aka Timothy Lea

  CHAPTER ONE

  What I can’t understand is why all the taps in the bath are shaped like Sid’s mug. I mean, if he was sticking over the side of a church with water pouring out of his cakehole like one of those gargoyles I would not be surprised – but a gold tap! If you are going to mess about with gold you want to do something nice with it, don’t you? Anyway, I haven’t got time to worry about that. Not with all the young maidens bearing pitchers of ass’s milk and emptying them into the bath – don’t ask me how I know it is ass’s milk. It just feels like it. Fresh from the ass too, I should reckon, because it is quite warm.

  Some of these birds are fantastic. Naked to the waist – going downwards, of course – and slim as England’s chances in the next World Cup. They are of what you might call dusky hue and their knockers dangle temptingly like inverted foxgloves. I can imagine how they feel; soft and silky, satisfyingly full … Steady Lea! Control yourself.

  The bath is beginning to fill up fast now – and not just with ass’s milk. The girls empty their pitchers and then get in the bath. I suppose it helps to raise the milk level but it does seem a bit unusual. Still the line of girls stretches back out beyond the marble pillars and disappears through the wrought-iron gates so there should be no shortage of supply. Those loin cloths are attractive. Simple and so easy to release. You just tug the knob at the waist and – ooh! That was a bit cheeky. Perhaps she tugged the wrong knob by mistake. But no! She’s done it again. What lovely eyes she has. And that smile. Revealing Teds as white as the milk that is now lapping round our navels. Her barnet is held in place by one of those little caps like they wear in Joe Lyons and, now I come to think of it, she is a dead ringer for the bird who sold me the Cornish pasty at dinner time. Still, she couldn’t be. How would she get from Joe Lyons to the Sultan’s harem in just a few hours? There was a swarthy geezer behind me in the queue but I only heard him ask for a couple of doughnuts – ooh! She’s done it again. This must be love. Either that or the bath is so full of crumpet that you can’t help bumping into it. And still the line of vase-carrying beauties stretches away into the distance. I suppose that is what they mean out here when they talk about ‘going to the pitchers’. Oh! Now there is another of them at it. It’s a good job that ass’s milk is not transparent otherwise it might be embarrassing. Aaarh. What a soft, beautiful mouth. It seems to have appeared from nowhere and is now browsing on my lips. Tingles run through my system and I feel myself growing, growing … blimey! Is that me? That huge tutti-frutti all rooty with the birds nibbling it like they are playing a giant flute? It cannot be true. Soaring out of the milk it is like a nuclear sub breaking through the icecap. And the sensations! And all those lovely girls pressed against me! Oh, it’s too much, it really is. I don’t think I’ll be able to hold on much – Wait a minute! Who’s the geezer with the scimitar and the baggy trousers? The turban with the cockade and the mean expression on his mug? Why is he wading through the milk towards me. ‘Sid!’ I shout the word but no sound comes out of my mouth. I try to move but the weight of birds on top of me makes it impossible. Only my enormous hampton trembles in the slipstream of Sid swinging back his sword. ‘No!!’ Again, not a sound. Sid’s features se
t in an evil smile and the muscles in his arms tighten. ‘You can’t!’ I am using every ounce of strength I possess but not moving an inch. It is as if I have been drugged, as if I am standing outside myself trying to get back in. ‘Whooosh!’ “Yaaaaaaargh! ! !” I am so relieved to hear the sound of my own voice shouting into the night that I nearly shout again. Night! A second wave of relief arrives almost simultaneously with the first. I have been dreaming. Clammy and half strangled by sheets, I shake myself free and listen to a distant train. 17, Scraggs Lane seems quiet as a grave – which it resembles in many ways. I wonder if I have woken Mum and Dad? Contrary to what one might think, Dad is a light sleeper. He gets so much kip at the lost property office where he works and in front of the telly that he is quite perky during the time the rest of the world gets its head down.

  I listen to the silence and then pull the bedclothes about me. What a bleeding nasty dream. If there are going to be any more like that I don’t fancy going back to kip. Just to be on the safe side I check that the old action man kit is still joined to the rest of me. Phew! What a relief. You never quite know with dreams, do you? Maybe it – no. For a moment I had hoped that it might have retained some of the lustrous promise of the harem but it seems very ordinary at the moment. Very, very ordinary. Still, better to have it intact and in working order than miniaturized by my brother-in-law’s scimitar. Funny him turning up like that. It is probably very symbolic. I believe that Clement Freud has done a lot of work in this area when not flogging dog food for the Liberal Party. He says that everything you dream has a meaning. I wonder what meaning having your hampton cut off by your brother-in-law has? Probably not a very nice one. I suppose I could write to Mr Freud about it but it does seem a bit delicate and the Liberals have enough problems of that kind as it is, don’t they? Better to save the cost of the postage stamp and buy a controlling interest in British Leyland.

  It is funny about the milk though. I mean, coming so soon after my interview at the depot. I suppose I must be keyed up at the thought of going out on the rounds with Mr Glossop. Two weeks with him, a week’s course, and I could have my own float. A steady income, regular hours and virtually your own boss. It can’t be bad, can it? And no Sid. I have been tagging along under his thumb for too long. All his crackpot schemes have got me nowhere. I have been exploited. I feel myself going hot under the pyjama collar and take a couple of long, deep breaths. Cool it, Lea. Sid is not going to like it but there is nothing he can do. If you want to be a milkman that is your decision.

  Cupping my hands round my goolies just in case Sid and his scimitar are within swinging distance, I prepare myself for the big day.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘You can imagine how I feel,’ says Fred Glossop. ‘Twenty years, that’s a long time.’

  I rub my hands together and nod. I know how I feel: bleeding parky. And we have only just left the depot. Still, it is only six o’clock and it must get warmer – lighter, too.

  ‘Are you tired, lad?’

  I swallow my yawn and try and look like I am just waiting to come out the traps at Harringay. ‘I didn’t sleep very well last night. I was a bit keyed up. You know what it’s, like when you want to be certain to wake up. You always wake up an hour earlier.’

  Fred nods, showing neither interest nor sympathy. ‘If you can’t get yourself up in the morning you might as well forget about the job. I’ve never found it a problem myself.’

  Fred Glossop must be about sixty and looks as if he has never heard anything but bad news all his life. You only have to start a sentence and he is nodding pessimistically before you have got further than ‘it’s a pity—’.

  ‘It’s going to be a bit of a problem when you retire,’ I say, listening to the whine of the float as we whirr past the lines of parked cars.

  ‘Oh no, not at all,’ says Fred – he disagrees with everything you say, as well. ‘I’ve always been able to amuse myself. My mind’s always on the go. That’s vital when you work by yourself. If you haven’t got an active mind you might as well forget it.’

  ‘Um, yes,’ I say. ‘This thing easy to drive, is it?’

  An expression almost of horror arrives on Fred’s face. ‘You’re not going to drive it,’ he says looking towards the pavement as if hoping to find someone to share his amazement with. ‘Not yet. These are specialized vehicles, you know.’

  ‘It’s only a bloody great battery, isn’t it?’ I say, beginnig to feel a bit choked. ‘I don’t want to enter it for a Grand Prix.’

  When you arrive at the depot in the morning all the battery-operated floats are on charge. The leads stretch away like mechanical milkers fastened to a cow’s udder. It is all very symbolic.

  ‘There’s no need for that tone,’ reprimands Fred. ‘After twenty years I ought to know the regulations. We’ll put you through your paces at the depot. You could be cut to pieces out here – look at that one!’ A car pulls out of the line in front of us without giving a signal and I catch a glimpse of a dry-faced man using an electric shaver with one hand while he drives with the other.

  ‘Off to the office?’ I say.

  ‘Or home,’ says Fred making a ‘tch, tch’ noise. ‘There’s a lot of it goes on round here. People’s moral values seem to have plummeted.’

  ‘You must have seen a lot of changes,’ I say. This remark is always guaranteed to give any boring old fart over the age of thirty-five enough to talk about for the rest of his life and Fred Glossop is no exception.

  ‘There’s no comparison,’ he says. ‘There’s not many of the old ones left. All these people coming in from outside have changed the whole character of the community. Look at that. Wire baskets of flowers hanging in the porch. I ask you! Of course, the kids from the Alderman Wickham Estate come and nick them.’ A certain grim satisfaction enters his voice and then fades quickly. ‘Still, they’re horrible little baskets themselves. Where are you from?’

  I am not quite certain I care for the way he moves smoothly from talk of ‘horrible little baskets’ to an enquiry after my place of residence but I let the matter pass. ‘Scraggs Lane,’ I say.

  ‘Oh.’ Glossop sounds surprised. ‘You’re local then.’ His tone warms on learning that I am not a light-skinned Jamaican. ‘That hasn’t changed much, has it? Apart from the bits they’ve pulled down. The wife’s mother used to live there until they put her in a flat.’ He makes it sound like a cage – quite accurate really. Most of the flats do look like nesting boxes for mice. ‘Mrs Summers?’

  I shake my head. ‘I expect my Mum knows her. Are you going to live round here when you retire?’

  Glossop screws up his face like I have slipped a spoonful of cough mixture into his cakehole. ‘Worthing,’ he says. ‘Nice little bungalow. Near enough the front but not so you get the weather and the people. Know what I mean?’

  I give him a ‘sort of’ kind of nod and wrap my arms round my body so that I can tuck my hands under my armpits. Gawd but it is taters. I can see why Fred Glossop wears mittens round his blue, bony fingers.

  ‘Cold, lad?’ he says glancing at me disparagingly. ‘This isn’t cold. Not compared with what it can be. If you find this cold —’

  ‘I’d better forget about the job. Yeah, I know,’ I say, finishing his sentence for him and wondering if I am going to be able to stand two weeks with such a miserable old sod. ‘How much longer before we get where we’re going.’

  Glossop looks at me coldly and mutters something under his breath. ‘Just round the corner. Up Clyde Avenue, along Barton Way, The Estate, Clark Street, Thurleigh Avenue, south side of the common and back down Nightingale Road.’

  ‘Blimey,’ I say. ‘All human life is here.’

  Glossop gives me a second helping of the freezing glances laced with a deep sigh and slams on the anchors. Our glorious progress is arrested and the crates of milk in the back make ‘tut, tut’ noises. ‘After a while you know what everybody has,’ he says. ‘It comes automatic. You’ll have to look in the book at first. When I collect the div
is, that’s when I indulge in the sales chat. If a lady’s in a delicate condition for instance.’

  ‘You mean if she’s broken something?’ I say.

  The red veins that run across Glossop’s face like a map of the world’s airlines leak some colour into his hollow cheeks ‘I mean, if she’s with child.’

  ‘Oh, I get it,’ I say. ‘When they’re in the pudding club you wack in with an extra pint?’

  Glossop closes his eyes and nearly drops a couple of pints of homogenised. ‘Don’t be disgusting!’ he says. ‘You’ll never get anywhere if you talk like that. You have to present yourself to the public as a fount of practical knowledge and guidance on all matters relating to the beneficial properties of milk and its allied products. They have to respect you.’

  ‘Of course,’ I say. ‘I quite see that.’

  What I am really clocking is the little darling leaning out of the bay window of what must be the sitting room. She is wearing a black, halter neck nightie and although her hair has been piled up on top of her head it is starting to tumble down temptingly.

  ‘Sweet little tits,’ says Glossop.

  ‘Not so little, either,’ I say.

  Glossop switches his gaze from the bird table and I realize that there has been a misunderstanding, the judy tosses her head sulkily and closes the window. ‘You’ll have to watch your step,’ says Glossop. ‘I can’t see you lasting long at this rate.’

  By eleven o’clock I am prepared to agree with him. My fingers feel as if they are going to drop off with the cold and I am knackered after struggling up and down hundreds of flights of stairs. I never knew there were so many flat developments. The biggest of them all is the Alderman Wickham Estate and that is where Fred Glossop looks at his watch and strokes his chin thoughtfully. ‘Um,’ he says. ‘I’m going to leave you here for a bit. I want to get something for the wife.’