Colin Capon on Milk

I mean there were a lot still hand milking in the mid ’50’s. I think at Great Briddlesford they probably… I would think I was about, yeah I reckon early ’50’s they went to the milking machine.

Again, we didn’t have electricity at Great Briddlesford until 1960 I think and that was definitely, like Trev said, the little engine that would drive the vacuum pump and it was what we called ‘milking buckets’ then.

Every little unit you just had a little hose on it, connect up to an overhead vacuum line and that unit had its own pulsator and everything. And you’d milk one cow … most dairy’s had two or three units didn’t we, but of course years later those milk and buckets went and they had a direct line over to what they called a milk line so you had one pipe coming from the … to connect up to the vacuum and the other pipe would take the milk as well so it went from the cow straight through into the dairy and into the cooler or later into the bulk tanks of course. I reckon it was mid ’50’s most of them must have shifted but Trev has a relation who was hand milking for a lot longer than that don’t you? Mrs Cosh.

Trevor:             Yes, she is cousin Amy who milked by hand all of her life and she’s still alive today, not milking by the way, and she’s 90, yes she was 90 last year wasn’t she?

Colin:               Yeah, and she … when did she retire from milking do you reckon? It’s longer ago than I think.

Trevor:             Well they still kept going even when …

Colin:                They did for a long time.

Trevor:             … for a good many years they used to still come and collect her milk even so she was milking by hand.

Colin :               And she used to tip it into a bulk tank and they’d suck it out but she must have been one of the last people on the Island hand milking, I would think so.