Bishop Monkton couple prepare for final milk round after 50 years

For 50 years, David and Christine Jones have delivered milk to the doorsteps of Bishop Monkton.

They have delivered through snow, floods, Covid and even a road closure which left them facing a 25-mile detour.

Now, after half a century, the couple are retiring, and villagers are wondering what they will do without them.

David and Christine, who live in the village, started their round in 1976. Since then, the job has become about far more than milk.

They have shopped for housebound residents, collected prescriptions, visited people in hospital and care homes and sat with those who were elderly, unwell or approaching the end of their lives.

They have kept frozen meals ready for people who needed them and invited villagers who would otherwise have been alone to their home for Christmas dinner, collecting them and taking them home afterwards.

“We like to think we were a fourth emergency service,” the couple said.

Christine said the community had made the job special.

“It is the people that have made this such an enjoyable, special job, getting to know them and helping out,” she said.

And the connections have lasted well beyond the doorstep.

Former customers who have since moved away still keep in touch with the couple, often sending updates about their families, including children David and Christine watched grow up.

The scale of the round has changed dramatically since they started.

In 1976, milk cost 9p a pint. Skimmed and semi-skimmed milk were not yet part of the daily vocabulary, and milk was largely farm-bottled, with production and sales tightly controlled by the Milk Marketing Board.

At its height, David and Christine were delivering around 800 pints a day across Bishop Monkton and the surrounding villages west of Ripon.

The round now delivers around 750 pints a week, with Bishop Monkton the final village remaining on it.

Remarkably, around a dozen customers in the village have been receiving their milk from David and Christine since the round began.

One of them said: “They are a lovely, lovely, kind and caring couple who would do anything for anybody if they could. Just amazing people and I am very proud to know them.

“They will be missed so much and I admit to a tear in my eye when I read their retirement note.”

And despite the changes, one thing never altered: the milk arrived.

Not even a few feet of snow, inches of flood water or a global pandemic stopped the deliveries.

When roadworks cut Bishop Monkton in two for several months, the couple simply took a different route, adding 25 miles to the round trip rather than miss a delivery.

The milk round has also been a family affair.

Alongside delivering milk, David and Christine brought up their three sons while keeping sheep and pigs, at one point running 300 pigs.

Their children were involved from an early age.

Their youngest son was just three months old when he began accompanying Christine on her deliveries. Along the route, there were mothers who would happily look after him for an hour or two while she finished the round.

Their eldest son joined his father on the Friday evening rounds to collect payments.

All three were paid for their work, although their wages were modest - two ounces of Midget Gems a week, according to their middle son, who jokingly described it as “slave labour”.

Bishop Monkton resident Glenda Hunter, said: “They are simply lovely people who epitomise community service and spirit.”

David and Christine celebrated their 58th wedding anniversary this month.

Now, after 50 years of early starts, milk rounds and looking out for the people around them, their final delivery is approaching on Saturday (October 3).

And perhaps the most telling thing about how they see their contribution is their response to the praise from the village.

“We have just been doing our job. It’s really nothing out of the ordinary,” they said.