On the milk

the long version

Fourteen-year-old Willie lied about his age to get a job delivering milk from the back step of the Fletcher's Dairy truck. He had guessed that a more mature person would have an advantage; and he was right. Soon Willie was putting his intensive training into practice. He could drop from a moving lorry while loaded up with milk bottles, and squeeze a penny or two more of tips from his customers, using a library of carefully crafted throwaway comments. Set against the backdrop of an industrial town in decline, this is a fabulous story of boys growing up in sixties Britain.