When I left you last week it was the late 1960s and The Lad was happy as a sandboy in a regular secure job tanking milk for Associated Dairies at West Marton. David Peacock was still in charge, Bill Mills was the manager and Colin Barrett was still in charge of all milk intake and processing. The cheese factory was on stream, we had plenty of milk coming in and everything in the garden was perfect.
I’ve mentioned security, nothing was more secure than working in an essential food distributing industry like fresh milk. However, there was a trade-off, we didn’t have the best wage scale in the transport industry, but it was regular and we had plenty of overtime working as we worked 365 days a year. Our wages were set by The Milk Distributive Wages Council set up in 1945 (and abolished in 1993). The wage, though low, was fair and never under any dispute. We got a flat rate per hour for I think 40 hours a week, any overtime was paid at time and a half and double time on Sundays and holidays. If we worked on a holiday we got time of in lieu or if we didn’t take the time we got paid the flat rate for time so in effect we were on treble time for holiday overtime. I think I’ve got this right, it was many years ago. I am sure that we were the best paid workers at the dairy because of our hours. By the way, starting at midnight wasn’t seen as anti-social hours it was part of the job.
The net effect and the one I want to get across to you is that we had security and a guaranteed remuneration structure, in many ways exactly what the farmers got out of the MMB. Notice the dates I have mentioned, in 1993 the wages councils were abolished and in 1994 the MMB was deprived of its power. This was during the full flow of the rush by the Thatcher government towards privatisation. ‘Free market economics’ was the catch phrase. Harold Macmillan commented that it was the equivalent of ‘selling the family silver’ and I have to say I believe he was right.
This was when the dairy farmers were thrown out in the cold and their problems started. They suddenly found that they were prey to the enormous buying power of the supermarkets who had a virtual monopoly of milk sales. Despite the old canard about ‘feather-bedded’ farmers and the widely held view that ‘they are always complaining’ it must be obvious to all but the most insensitive that the result of this ‘rationalisation’ of the market has been a disaster in terms of UK milk production. The failure of Dairy Farmers of Britain at the beginning of June is only the tip of the iceberg. We are rapidly approaching the point where UK production of milk will be less than demand and we shall have to start importing large quantities of liquid milk. Does anyone imagine that this will be cut-rate? The tragedy is that the prevalent view is not that milk is under-priced at the retail outlet but that too much profit (about 50%) is being taken out of the market by the middle men.
There is a further complication. ‘The Market’ always assumes that there are instantaneous solutions, alternative sources of supply, like turning the taps on or off at an oil refinery. Unfortunately when you’re dealing with nature you have to move at her pace. From conception to milk production it takes over four years to rear a dairy cow, you can’t turn them on and off like a tap. Once a farmer has gone out of the milk trade the capital costs of restarting can’t be clawed back from even a half decent return, standards are so much higher these days. The sad fact is that the farmers who are being driven out of milk production will never go back in. What are they to do? Change their farms into theme-parks? We have already seen this happen locally. All power to their elbows but it isn’t farming as I know it.
We live in one of the best stock-rearing and milk production areas in Britain. I can remember how astounded I was when I learned in 2000 that the dairy at West Marton had failed and was closing down. Surely this is the best evidence we can have of the failure of the market. If a well-founded dairy in the middle of a prime milk area where there is a constant demand for the product can’t survive it is a sign of diabolically bad management or policy. I can’t tell you how angry this makes me.
It gets even worse, the consequence of the market’s failures I have been telling you about over the last few weeks aren’t limited to milk production. Privatisation and the leeching out of profit from fundamental elements of society is tremendously damaging in other ways. Think of the security that is lost by the shop-floor workers and the stress this places on society. We even see things like education, health and essential public utilities being made into ‘cost centres’ and run for profit. To my mind there are certain areas where we should call a halt and say to the market that whilst it may not be the most economically efficient way to run certain enterprises, public service non-profit systems are human centred and lead to a better life so any extra cost is a price worth paying.
Lets go back to milk. When did we ever have any problem paying the milk chap for seven pints of locally produced milk delivered on our doorstep during the week? For years while Vera and I were paying half our income out each month for the mortgage on Hey Farm we were poor as church mice but we were happy and I can never remember us going short of essential food because we couldn’t afford it. The supermarkets tell us that we’ve never had it so good but is this really true? Do we spend less money on food today than we did in the bad old days? I have to tell you that I suspect we have all been the subject of a confidence trick and have been manipulated in exactly the same way that the farmers were, under privatisation. The aim was to extract more profit for the fat cats from the system and it has worked. The markets have triumphed at the expense of the dairy farmers, the lowest-paid workers and our grandchildren who will pay the price. That’s right, I am very angry!
A group of workers at the dairy in 1950.
Very enjoyable articles Stanley, even if 'back' ones all new to me. Brought back many memories. My dad was a dairy farmer and stockbreeder; first near Kelbrook, and then later at Reedley near Burnley. At Reedley we had a 'proper' steam driven dairy, with coolers, boilerhouse, big cold store, steam driven bottle washer, sterilising stuff and whatnot. We had a milkround served originally by a horse float, 12 gallon kits, and measures for a gill, half a pint, and a pint; dished out on the doorsteps of Reedley and Brierfield. Later we went on to glass pint bottles with cardboard tops, delivered with a converted WWII ambulance. The horse (Sally) and float were still for my mini-round before I caught the quarter past eight school bus.Later we progressed to aluminium foil tops, delivered by an Austin Gypsy with me as driver! It all went pear shaped when dad caught brucellosis in the early 60's; and the landlords sold off the land for building developments. What was a reasonably prosperous dairy farm in the 40/50's/early 60's is now unrecognisable; being a consolidated des-res area last time I had the courage to visit - about 6 years ago. I see more and more farms disappearing completely in the North.
