From wartime to breaktime, the great British pinta has been there for us through thick and thin, but are the days of blue-tit ravaged bottles a thing of the past? wonders Pete Quinlan
You would be hard-pressed to find a more resonant image of the Blitz than this one: the plucky London milkman delivering pints to doorsteps that may well no longer be attached to houses. Milk itself is a potent symbol of British spirit. The glass pints were once entrenched in the national psyche - from their chime of arrival on the doorstep to the reliance of primary schools nationwide on foil tops as an all-purpose art medium.
Dairy produce was in decent supply during the war, at least relative to other goods. After all, it was produced on British farms, many of which were playing host to evacuated city kids, and which gave many of the same kids their first taste of the white stuff straight from the cow, rather than via the milkman.
Although the adult ration of three pints a week was adequate, making the most of it was vital. Using milk that was on the turn in making scones was popular, and imported dried milk made up shortfalls where necessary. After the war, milk received a big boost with the 1946 Education Act when, for the first time, all school- children were given free milk. The resulting ritual of glistening crates at morning break, the highly prized role of milk monitor and the illicit exchanges between children who did and didn't drink their milk all played a part in building the Britons of today.
Although Margaret 'Milk-Snatcher' Thatcher has taken most of the blame, Harold Wilson's government started the move away from milk in schools in 1968 when it removed free milk from secondaries. But the deliveries were still coming in thick and fast to doorsteps, and the milky gained a place in the nation's sitcoms and seaside postcards as a suburban lothario, soldiering through in every weather on his quaintly futuristic electric float with a glint in his eye and an extra bottle of gold top at the ready.
His glory days were numbered, however. Milk drinking has been declining at about half a per cent of the UK market every year for decades. This has coincided with a drop in deliveries, with the transfer from bottles to cardboard and 'poly-bottles', and from foil-tops to tops that foil your attempts to open them.
Milk advertising once gave us simple assertions; that we should Drinka Pinta Milka Day, that it has Gotta Lotta Bottle, and that without it we would only be good enough to play football for Accrington Stanley, according to Liverpool and Wales striker Ian Rush. The latest campaign develops this celeb-angled strategy further, by featuring all-girl pop group Atomic Kitten sporting milk moustaches. The band have issued a proclamation that those without milk in their diets will be rendered too weak to replicate the group's trademark dance moves. You have been warned.