PULLED PORK BAO delivered with one click by a Deliveroo rider on a motorcycle. Co-op’s own-brand vodka brought to the door by your Uber driver to replenish depleted supplies mid-house party. A supermarket home delivery in enough carrier bags to make a large, plastic parachute, complete with thimble-sized jars of honey where you messed up the size ordering online.
The predecessor of Deliveroo, Uber Eats, and a hard-fought, carefully scheduled home delivery slot from Tesco, was the milkman—once a regular sight on British streets, now somewhat of a novelty. For the 19th and much of the 20th centuries, most homes in Britain had their milk delivered by the milkman. As late as 1980, almost 90 per cent of UK households had milk delivered to their door, but by 2016 that figure had fallen to a mere three per cent. Milkmen, it seemed, were to join the ranks of redundant jobs; town criers, lamplighters and pinsetters.
During COVID-19, milkmen made a comeback from the brink of extinction, with
