Hazel Maclean

Interviewed by Yolande Pierce on 31 January 1989
Subject: Dairies

Yolande Pierce. Well I guess around here there weren’t too many….

Hazel Maclean. ….well there was nothing. When I was living here as a child, there was nothing whatsoever. The last house was at the end of Medusa Street, almost facing, there was a house, which was a dairy, and that was the back of beyond there, and there was another dairy – you know? along Spit Road there’s a car salesroom, well that used to be a dairy.

Yolande Pierce. Were they large properties?

Hazel Maclean. Oh, fairly large. It was fresh milk from the cows, it wasn’t just delivered there, the cows were there.

Yolande Pierce. Was that delivered to you from those local dairies?

Hazel Maclean. Oh yes, everything was delivered, milk, bread, vegetables. The post-man used to bring the letters right to the front door. Jimmy Crouch, he was the post-man for years and years and years. Just about everything was delivered. We had the same greengrocer who called, oh for 20 or 30 years he came round, and they’d come in with a great big basket with a sample of everything that they had on the carts, and you’d choose what you wanted.

Yolande Pierce. They’d bring it to the front door with a cart.

Hazel Maclean. The back door, oh not the front door, it was the back door, right the way round the back. I can’t remember his name, but he was a bonzer chap too. But you’d choose what you wanted and then he would go out to the cart and measure out what you wanted and bring it all back again.