Stuff you find on streets

[baldrick]

I found a train/london underground travel pass valid for another 8 months, which would have been worth over £800.
Some of my mates thought I should keep it and use it, but I took it to the address shown on the owner's business card which was also in the ticketholder. He wasn't there, but his colleague confirmed it was his and thanked me for returning it.

[stokes11eg]

Happy Days! Sitting in a cafe in the sixties, you could buy a coke or hot orange for sixpence, and slap the other tanner in the jukebox!

In the sixties? exactly how old do you think I am stokesy.......d'you think I can remember Wimpy Bars, and what's a sixpence?

You old goat! if memory serves nw well you are almost a pensioner! And there used to be milk bars too, so there!

[Lounge Lizard]

Happy Days! Sitting in a cafe in the sixties, you could buy a coke or hot orange for sixpence, and slap the other tanner in the jukebox!

In the sixties? exactly how old do you think I am stokesy.......d'you think I can remember Wimpy Bars, and what's a sixpence?

You old goat! if memory serves nw well you are almost a pensioner! And there used to be milk bars too, so there!

23 December 2010

One shop left as Aberystwyth National Milk Bar closes

By Carl Yapp

BBC Wales News


Aberystwyth's National Milk Bar closed last Saturday after more than 70 years

National Milk Bars were once a common sight in Wales, and even The Beatles dropped in for a coffee at a branch on their way to the top, but the restaurants could soon be a thing of the past.

Customers appear to be shunning their frothy coffees, cream cakes and milk shakes in favour of more sophisticated and trendy coffee shops.

In recent years, the chain of 17 milk bars has dwindled to just one in Wales, in Rhyl. Aberystwyth's closed last Saturday and in recent weeks Welshpool's also shut.

The National Milk Bars (NMB) were founded by Willie Griffiths and his wife Florence, and they ran them successfully from the Woodlands farm in Forden, near Welshpool, for a number of years.

The couple decided early on that their future lay in milk, although they did not have much experience of dairy farming.


Willie Griffiths founded the National Milk Bars with his wife, Florence Farming was Mr Griffiths's first love, but he enjoyed the challenge of business. On a trip to London in the early 1930s, he noticed the new phenomenon of milk bars, which had started in the United States.

Milk was being sold across smart counters for a few pennies a glass, so Mr Griffiths decided to provide an outlet in Wales.

The first NMB branch opened in Colwyn Bay in 1933, followed by Llandudno later that same year. Within a decade there were 10 NMBs, and to help supply them, Mr and Mrs Griffiths bought a milk depot and cheese factory in Four Crosses, near Welshpool.

The brand branched out into England, and in 1936 a milk bar opened in Birmingham and a year later there was one in Manchester too. Others followed in Liverpool, Shrewsbury and Oswestry.

The Beatles are even said to have met at the Liverpool bar.

For the next few decades the business flourished, even after Mr Griffiths' death in 1962.

Between 1972 and 1982, turnover quadrupled from £500,000 to £2m and by 1987 it was £3m. Two years later Mrs Griffiths died, at 91, after 60 years as a company director.


A National Milk Bar from about 1935 But by 2000, NMB's fortunes started to fade. It closed its Newtown branch, and others were either sold or shut in the following years.

Managing director John Frost said the company was struggling against coffee shop and supermarket cafe competition.

He said: "We've lost the model, as it were, of National Milk Bar. It's become out of date really with the next generation, so if we were looking to continue we'd probably have to upgrade and become a more coffee-like operation.

"But that market is pretty flooded at the moment."

Mr Frost added that NWBs had been suffering from a "general decline in the economy and the high street".

He said: "There's a lot of competition. Tesco has moved into Newtown, Machynlleth and Welshpool and it tends to suck up trade in the high street."

Mr Frost added: "Our Liverpool branch is mentioned in a biography of the Beatles. They talked about going down to the milk bar in 1964. We're glad to have this claim to fame."

[stokes11eg]

[dvbuk55]

Happy Days! Sitting in a cafe in the sixties, you could buy a coke or hot orange for sixpence, and slap the other tanner in the jukebox!

In the sixties? exactly how old do you think I am stokesy.......d'you think I can remember Wimpy Bars, and what's a sixpence?

You old goat! if memory serves nw well you are almost a pensioner! And there used to be milk bars too, so there!

Milk? Bloody hell we could barely afford water, I remember only too well having to send one of the servants down to the river to get a pitcher of water

As for milk bars............we were never that sophisticated..................we had a herb shop, where you could buy hop stout, sarsaparilla hot or cold, herb teas, fruit drinks of all manner ......................in fact it was called a temperance bar, instituted decades before probably to keep the workmen out of the pub when they were paid daily, I well remember cycling down a cobbled street..............actually my first house was in a cobbled street.

[Lounge Lizard]

Happy Days! Sitting in a cafe in the sixties, you could buy a coke or hot orange for sixpence, and slap the other tanner in the jukebox!

In the sixties? exactly how old do you think I am stokesy.......d'you think I can remember Wimpy Bars, and what's a sixpence?

You old goat! if memory serves nw well you are almost a pensioner! And there used to be milk bars too, so there!

Milk? Bloody hell we could barely afford water, I remember only too well having to send one of the servants down to the river to get a pitcher of water

As for milk bars............we were never that sophisticated..................we had a herb shop, where you could buy hop stout, sarsaparilla hot or cold, herb teas, fruit drinks of all manner ......................in fact it was called a temperance bar, instituted decades before probably to keep the workmen out of the pub when they were paid daily, I well remember cycling down a cobbled street..............actually my first house was in a cobbled street.

Cycle, House, We used to dream of having a cycle and living in a house. All we had was ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[stokes11eg]

Happy Days! Sitting in a cafe in the sixties, you could buy a coke or hot orange for sixpence, and slap the other tanner in the jukebox!

In the sixties? exactly how old do you think I am stokesy.......d'you think I can remember Wimpy Bars, and what's a sixpence?

You old goat! if memory serves nw well you are almost a pensioner! And there used to be milk bars too, so there!

Milk? Bloody hell we could barely afford water, I remember only too well having to send one of the servants down to the river to get a pitcher of water

As for milk bars............we were never that sophisticated..................we had a herb shop, where you could buy hop stout, sarsaparilla hot or cold, herb teas, fruit drinks of all manner ......................in fact it was called a temperance bar, instituted decades before probably to keep the workmen out of the pub when they were paid daily, I well remember cycling down a cobbled street..............actually my first house was in a cobbled street.

Cycle, House, We used to dream of having a cycle and living in a house. All we had was ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

But Bet you were stil happier then!!

[Lounge Lizard]

Happy Days! Sitting in a cafe in the sixties, you could buy a coke or hot orange for sixpence, and slap the other tanner in the jukebox!

In the sixties? exactly how old do you think I am stokesy.......d'you think I can remember Wimpy Bars, and what's a sixpence?

You old goat! if memory serves nw well you are almost a pensioner! And there used to be milk bars too, so there!

Milk? Bloody hell we could barely afford water, I remember only too well having to send one of the servants down to the river to get a pitcher of water

As for milk bars............we were never that sophisticated..................we had a herb shop, where you could buy hop stout, sarsaparilla hot or cold, herb teas, fruit drinks of all manner ......................in fact it was called a temperance bar, instituted decades before probably to keep the workmen out of the pub when they were paid daily, I well remember cycling down a cobbled street..............actually my first house was in a cobbled street.

Cycle, House, We used to dream of having a cycle and living in a house. All we had was ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

But Bet you were stil happier then!!

Not half, those were the good old days before Door To Doors.

[dvbuk55]

Times were hard, I remember my mum sharpening the carving knife on the back step making the neighbours think we had meat for sunday lunch, when what we really had was suet pudding

[Lounge Lizard]

Times were hard, I remember my mum sharpening the carving knife on the back step making the neighbours think we had meat for sunday lunch, when what we really had was suet pudding

We used to dream of suet pudding. Lard sandwiches on a Sunday, that's if it was Christmas.
Seriously though I remember the end of shoes cut out when our feet grew, and leather patches on the elbows of school blazers.

[arnold cheshire]

wheelie bins in the way every fortnight

[Jynxx]

Another thing i found once was 3 kittens, middle of nowhere covered in mud and muck they were a right state....i asked a lady who lived in the nearby address and she said she had been feeding them but they were homeless so i picked them up put them in the van with the plan of dropping them off at the animal shelter close to the end of the duty.

I put the heater on for them and they stunk the van out and were always getting under my feet while i was trying to change gear, then for sods laws sake the ball joint went on the van 1/4 a mile down a farm track had to walk another 1/4 mile to the local farm ask to use their phone to get a second van, walk the half mile back to the road so the line managers could find me.

Then had to explain to them why i had 3 stinking kittens in the foot well of the van they found it funny finish the duty and go drop them off at the animal shelter....

They were cute though. (I couldn't have kept them as my dog would have ate them)

Also found a Bull who had tried to get across to the cows on the other side of a cattle grid stuck firmly all four legs in the grid had to go tell the local farmer (didn't fancy trying to get that one out and putting it in the van )

[arnold cheshire]

theres always a tenner on the street corners i love it

[stokes11eg]

Still remembere the time I found a wet and soggy fiver halfway up a garden path--could have blown in from anywhere--pocketed it initially, (and dried it out) but next day posted it through the letter box! Couldn't help thinking it probably was the h/ holders, and may have been all they had in the world!
My family kinked up when they heard what I had done!

[Postman Plodd]

Found a fiver right on the doorstep of a house, front door is open, woman lying on settee watching morning telly with a beer. 'Found this fiver here on the step'
'Oh it'll be our Sharon's, just chuck it in the hall' goes back to watching telly. No thanks or kiss me arse or nowt.