YOU may recall that last time I began telling you about the first job I was given on the farm, but as often happens I digressed and promised to return to my original subject this time.

I had got as far as the milking unit being changed from one cow onto her mate in the stall.

I should say here that if either of the cows was a heavy milker the unit bucket would need to be changed between cows to be sure the bucket would hold all the milk.

The reason for having a milk pail as well as a spare unit bucket was so that you could tip milk into the pail for "carrying up" as well as the unit bucket to enable milking to carry on without the interruption of having to wait for a unit bucket.

So off I went to the "receiving room" with a unit bucket full of milk in one hand and a full pail in the other hand.

The receiving room, which was up to two steps, was about eight inches square with a concrete floor and white tiled walls; it was so called because it was where the milk was received from the shippon.

The receptacle for the milk was a semi-circular metal tank on a bracket stand that was fixed to the wall that was shared by the dairy.

The "receiver" as we called it was shoulder high and out of the bottom ran a metal pipe, which took the milk through the wall into the dairy.

The pipe had a tap at the dairy end so that you could control the flow of milk into a metal trough a bit like a small gutter with each end filled in, allowing the milk to flow down over a corrugated cooler

inside which cold water passed all the time and ran onto the dairy floor unless you wanted to "catch" the water to use for watering other stock, then you

would catch it in spare churns.

The milk eventually ran into another gutter-shaped trough and eventually passed through holes, one in the centre and one at each end into clean milk churns positioned under each hole.

We had a couple of brass plugs, each with a small rod that ended in a ring so that you could plug the hole and so stop the milk while you rolled a full churn away and replaced it with an empty one.

You never let a churn run over for that was a cardinal sin with tell-tale milk all over the dairy floor - that would be most embarrassing.

I know some people used more spare buckets, but our boss believed in keeping the number of buckets at the back of the shippon down to a bare minimum.

The churns were marked on the outside with indented numbers for each gallon mark, the ones in use at that time held either ten or 12 gallons.

Yes, I still think in English and will continue to do so.

I forget all sorts, but I always remember a gallon of milk weighed 10.23lbs (I hope to goodness I'm right).

Of course, great strides have been made in the production of top quality, clean and healthy milk, but that's how we did it 60 years ago, and it worked.

Just for the record, it took more minutes to earn a pint of milk 20 years ago than it does today; so there's a bargain for you.

Dialect word: Lug meaning to drag or carry.

Thought for the day: The Postman said: "You'll not be seeing me for a bit.

I'm taking a vacation." To which the old countryman replied "Thee niver bother wi new-fangled remedies.

Tek some castor oil and if it doesn't do thee any good, it'll not do thee any harm".