Ian McMillan: When the penny dropped about the milkman

Elvis songs were his favourite; we’d often hear, It’s now or never floating from Mrs White’s house as he collected his money, his change-bag jingling as he swung his hips, rusty from so many early mornings and so many heavy crates.

Me and my dad would wait for the milkman with quite a lot of excitement. My dad because he was dreaming of home and me because I was dreaming of 1933. Let me explain. I spent much of my childhood, on and off, collecting coins. In those pre-decimal days you could still get ancient pennies in your change, sometimes going back to the late 18th-century, and The Milkman would sort them out for me and present me with them in exchange for a shilling or a florin. The Holy Grail for us numismatists though was a 1933 penny because rumour had it that only eight had been minted and only six had been found. So somewhere, in tills and moneyboxes and down the backs of settees and, crucially, in milkmen’s satchels, two examples of this very rare copper beast lurked. And I knew in my schoolboy heart that one day I’d find one of them. Or even both, in the same pile of change. The Milkman would arrive singing All Shook Up and I’d open the door, my eyes bright with hope, and he’d sadly shake his head. Sometimes he’d try to fool me, uncurling his hand slowly to reveal a penny from...1935. Or 1932. Or a Spangle. Or empty air. I’d turn away to hide my tears. But I always lived in hope.

My dad, a proud Scot, had once made the mistake of telling The Milkman he liked the design of the paper money they got in Scotland, that those fivers reminded him of his early life in the Borders.

So if The Milkman ever got any Scottish banknotes in his change he’d give them to my dad, who was initially grateful but eventually resentful although he was too polite to refuse them. As I now realise, The Milkman may as well have been giving my dad Zlotys or the Cowrie Currency of the Lesser Virgin Islands because a lot of shops in Barnsley wouldn’t take Scottish money. In fact they still won’t: it’s not too long ago that I saw a sign in a butcher’s shop that said “No fifty pound notes or Scotch”.

Even after so many refusals in so many South Yorkshire corner shops, though, my dad still felt a little tartan frisson as the milkman approached because for him the sight of Scottish money was like a view of the Forth Rail Bridge. He’d sometime join in The Milkman’s song, the two of them duetting on a soulful version of Heartbreak Hotel as the milkman raised his fist to knock on the glass and shout “Milk Money Today!”