Milk bottle tops

I loved school milk and took every opportunity to drink mine and anyone else's. I couldn't understand why some children wouldn't drink it. At primary school if there were spares the teacher always asked me first if I would like extra and I never refused. At Grammar school things got even better because the crates were just put out and left for people to help themselves, I just used to drink until I literally couldn't get any more in. I loved the cream on the top too; those days when I was a skinny beanpole are long gone sadly and it's been skimmed milk for me for more than twenty years.

The milk would have been full cream and there would be a 1/2 inch top of cream that would have been in the sunshine when it was delivered, so maybe that accounts for the smell. I also loved school milk, but it was always brought to the classroom and left in a corner in the shade for a couple of hours, so tasted lovely.

I loved the school milk and also drank nothing else at home. When I took part in a bone density study a few years ago my reading was off the top of the scale. As an adult I have drunk very little milk, so the childhood consumption obviously stood me in good stead.

The doorstep bottles were a different shape too - taller and narrower but with a wider mouth.
I didn't mind school milk in winter when it was so cold that i couldn't taste it, but in summer it always tasted slightly cheesy to me, and I have never been able to drink plain milk since, though I love milky drinks such as cocoa.

I too made pompoms with those cardboard tops. It took ages! You needed two; so as to cut the wool, you pulled them apart.

Remember in the sixties when the small birds learnt to peck in the foil tops to get the cream?

Crafty little bluetits were the main offenders!

I remember making flowers out of the coloured milk bottle tops they where made to look like little holly leaves and my sister and I used to stick them onto straws and make bunches of flowers for our mum,or we stuck them on cardboard and made a picture for the kitchen,we also washed them and made necklaces and bracelets,we would collect them from all the neighbours in the street.I loved my school milk time once we had drunk our milk we had a nap on one of the small camp beds put up in the class room.

We had to have a nap at my nusrsery school - my mum went back to work at the post office during the war - and we always had to lie down in these little camp beds, but I hated it, I couldn't see why we had to keep still when there were so many things to do! Boring!

I mean on, not in!

Never mind the school milk, which I didn't mind at all even with squashy waxy straws, but does no-one else remember the cod liver oil capsules, brought round by the cod liver oil capsule monitor(!) every morning? Woe betide anyone who tried to avoid taking one or tried to 'lose' it. Fine if you swallowed it quickly but heinous if it burst in your mouth It was also best to avoid burping for sometime after swallowing !!

Yes, I went to a nursery too. I absolutely hated being told I had to go to sleep on a scratchy camp bed with an even scratchier blanket.

We had to have a nap every day in the first year of infants, but we didn`t get even a scratchy blanket, just the camp beds to lie on. Woe betide you if Mrs. Oxley caught you talking instead of sleeping! She could see everywhere from her great big high desk, I remember it was painted white.

I can just about remember silver ones with holly printed on them

Does anyone remember being given spoonfuls of malt? Yuck!

Ooooh, yes, we had a teaspoon of cod liver oil and the promise of a dessertspoon of malt to help it down, so it always tasted great!

Yes, cold liver oil followed by Virol. We were also given spoonfuls of something called Minadex, haven't a clue what was in it but it tasted alright.

I remember Minadex - it was a tonic containg iron and vitamins.

We got the malt, YUCK!!, and regular doses of California Syrup of Figs, and Magnesia, which I loved, not milk of magnesia, this was a clear liquid in a large clear glass bottle. I also loved the taste of Fennings powders.

Virol, YUMMY - perhaps I'm a little odd though, I loved the syrup of figs too.

I remember the Christmassy foil tops I enjoyed my school milk and was very upset when Margaret Thatcher snatched it from me . It was reinstated later but I never forgave her . My Godmother commented recently I was so traumatised I have never been right since !!

Spoonful of malt YUM and spoonful of rosehip syrup too double yum

Virol! That was definitely yummy but syrup of figs definitely wasn't! I didn't have cod liver oil at my school - and that was one thing even my mother didn't thrust down my throat, thankfully. I enjoyed being milk monitor - a feeling of power!

And that orange juice that was concentrated for Vitamin C? I liked that but not the codliver oil, so my mum put the oil on top of the orange juice....sounds awful to me now, but I would drink it that way then!

Later I had codliver oil and malt, and my sister had Virol - don't know why.

I was given Minadex as well - it was in a brown bottle and tasted orangey. My mother used to stand over me at bedtime until I'd taken it!

Yuk, Minadex I remember that, it was disgusting. Also Parish's Food if you were sick - it was even more disgusting than Minadex and made you feel even more sick!