OUR photograph this week is from 1967 and shows Jack the milkman making his last round in the Fisherton area of Salisbury. Customers in West Street were waiting with a surprise for him and as he pulled up his float outside Norah’s Shop they gathered around him. Then, Miss Norah Fry, the shop owner, walked out and gave him an envelope containing £15.

“Jack” who was 67 in the March of that year and living in Ashley Road, had served the Dews Road area of Salisbury for almost half a century, and the residents wanted to show their appreciation. So they organised a collection among themselves resulting in the presentation - which was arranged with the utmost secrecy!

“Jack” – proper name John William Edgington – began his working life with Mr MJ Keevil at the Cathedral Dairies, Salisbury, in 1913, leaving 13 years later to join Mr M Salisbury of West Street, and that business was taken over by Percy-Churchfields Dairies in 1948.

“He is highly thought of by one and all” said a spokesman for Percy-Churchfields Dairies at the time “and we will be giving him a pension as a mark of our appreciation for his full trustworthiness and loyalty.”

Also at the shop to wish him well was Percy Maycock who had also recently retired as secretary of Percy-Churchfields Dairies. “Jack never let his firm down,” he said, “and in addition to his rounds he also organised outings for the staff, thus contributing in no small measure to the goodwill that existed between employers and employees.”

Many in Salisbury will have fond memories of Percy-Churchfields. They employed many of the milkmen that delivered to the doorsteps of Salisbury and also to the surrounding districts. Indeed, at its peak they had several hundred employees.