Protect What You Cherish: The Magic of the Not-So-Humble Milk Bottle

The clinking sound of the milkman leaving a pint on the doorstep used to be a charming part of the daily soundtrack of British life, but in the modern era of convenience and online deliveries it’s a shrinking industry. The milk bottles themselves can paint a picture of a bygone era, and no one knows more of those stories than Steve Wheeler. Having moved from Hereford to Malvern (ironically swapping an area known for its cows for another better known for its water) Wheeler displays his collection of 23,000 British milk bottles in his own museum, which has become a destination known not just for its sparkling exhibits (thanks to endless dusting) but for the nostalgia they evoke, with Steve on hand to tell their stories. He took us behind the scenes to share his cherished collection.

When did you begin collecting?

My collection started with a milk bottle I found on a walk in the Brecon Beacons, and put in the rucksack. When I got home and checked on it, it was an old 1950s half pint. I found the dairy was closing, and on investigation, I found all the dairies seemed to be closing and being taken over, so I thought I better get a few of these bottles from the dairies before they all close. I remember getting my hundredth bottle and thinking, now I've arrived.

What drives you to collect?

I'm very into anything made of glass. But, also, apart from all the designs and the sizes and the colors, it's the people. I've met so many really interesting people around the world that are connected with dairies or milk bottles. If you want to get a milk bottle, often you go to a guy on a farm at half past six in the morning before he milks, or at half past nine when he comes in for his breakfast. And I remember on one occasion, I had breakfast at half past six with one farmer, and then three hours later, I was forced into another breakfast with another farmer. So that morning, I had two breakfasts. 

When I walk around the museum, probably 99 per cent of the bottles will trigger a memory of where I got it from, or the guy that I met, or the farm I went to, or the people who visited and pointed it out. I might not know the farmer's inside leg measurement, but I could tell you where his farm was on the hill. I've got a lot of old ordnance survey maps from the 1970s, ‘80s, ‘90s, with my marks on them.

What are some of the stories behind the items in your collection?

On one of my trips into Lancashire, I'd heard there was a dairy called Bates of Southport. So I went there and the guy who came out turned out to be the owner, Cyril Bates. I told him what I was doing and he said, ‘I've been waiting for you, lad. You wait there, I'll be back in a minute.’ I'd never met him before in my life. About twenty minutes later, he came back with three crates full, plus three bottles: that's sixty three bottles, all from his dairy, every one different. When he and his dad had started doing the dairying in the thirties, every time they had a new batch of bottles, they saved one in case anybody ever wanted them. And to date - because the dairy is still going to this day - I now have eighty three bottles from that dairy, from basic red-printed pint and a third to a modern one, which says ‘Thank You to the NHS’ on it.

How do you look after them all?

If a bottle is damaged you can fill it with very fine polystyrene beads, which hides a multitude of sins. Once every 18 months we have a mass clean of the bottles in the museum, going through a shelf at a time with a damp cloth. And if possible you cap them so that you don't have to clean the inside. We used to get a robin that would follow me into the museum, and he'd perch on a milk bottle so that he could poop inside. He would do it all the time in a row of bottles I had in the window.

What response does your collection get from others?

I do talks to WIs, young farmers, church groups. When they come in, they are quite shocked because they started off just knowing you had a milk bottle on a doorstep. The majority didn't even realise some of them were printed, or how long they’d been going, and they're quite stunned by the colors and the designs and the sizes.

What is your advice to someone starting their own collection?

There are two things you must do with collecting: really enjoy the thing you're collecting, and do it when it doesn't cost anything. I'm very lucky, I do buy some bottles here and there when I'm desperate for more, but generally people are so kind - they know I've got a museum, and they like to have a bottle in it. One example of this is Mrs. Smith from Clee Hill, overlooking Cheltenham racecourse; I went to see her, and she had different bottles from her dairy from the fifties. I said that I'd love one for the museum if that was okay - and she said, ‘well, you must have them all.’ I asked what about the family, and she said, ‘oh, I know my family. I'll be dead in a few years, and they'll be in the bin!’ And since then, she's been to visit them, and her daughter, when she was over from Canada, came to visit them.

What’s next for your collection?

I will keep my collection until the day I die. I'm hoping to pass it on in the future and I would like a permanent display; I don't want it going into a cellar and being lost for all time. In a perfect world I would like a national milk bottle museum because apart from the stuff I've got, I've got friends out there who specialise in milk bottle collections and have some really unusual stuff. My family aren't interested in having it, but if something suddenly happens to me my fellow collectors would step in. If nothing else though, I've had my enjoyment out of it, so I shall pass on to my cloud in the sky quite happily.