Their floats were once a regular sight, quietly whirring down the country’s streets, delivering daily pints. Photographer Maxine Beuret captures the vanishing world of electric milk floats (and their drivers)
You often hear them before you see them: the unmistakable clink and tinkle of glass bottles in crates, and the low whine of the electric motor. Milk floats are a uniquely British sight, and an increasingly rare one, which is why the British photographer and cultural historian Maxine Beuret has spent 20 years documenting their use by dairies across England, as part of her project Two Pints Please.
Beuret, who calls herself a historian of the commonplace, has documented several quirks of British culture that are at risk of disappearing (or have since gone), including slam-door commuter trains, TfL’s Routemaster buses before they were decommissioned, and traditional shops in the Midlands including a sweet shop, a men’s outfitters and a hardware store. She first photographed an electric milk float while undertaking another project called Familiar Interiors of Leicester – her hometown – in 2005. As well as creating a record of the library, the hospital, the pub and other cherished places, she visited the local dairy, Kirby & West, and “instantly fell in love” with the milk floats, she says. “I loved the compact, functional design, clean lines, and fragile sense of history they carried with them.”
Overlooking the yard at Parker Dairies
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