MILK BARS IN LONDON

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 19, 23 January 1937, Page 5

MILK BARS IN LONDON

A POPULAR DITTY (By Nelle M. Scanlan.) LONDON, December 24. "Let's have a tiddly at the Milk Bar, And drink to the dear old cows." That is the chorus of a song they have been singing over the radio lately, and every time I hear it I think what a grand anthem it would make for the Dairy Farmers' Union. Milk bars have sprouted all oyer London, clean, smart places, all white marble and chromium plating, and people sit on high stools and drink hot milk or cold milk, or have a milk shake. There are endless new milk drinks being devised to meet the tastes of people who yearn for this simple refresher. I suppose you have them in New Zealand, too. i'.'s a splendid way to use up any surplus milk and encourage temperate habits in the young. This bright idea has caught on in London, and the bonebuilding business is in full swing. LiKe most innovations, it has provided a theme for the topical song writer. Can't you hear the happy chorus of dairy farmers at the annual dinners or cattle-breeders' banquets. You may not, as we do in London, have a toastmaster, in his scarlet coat, standing behind the chair. At the appropriate moment he announces in stentorian tones: "My lords, ladies, and gentlemen, pray silence for your chairman." But at least you have a chairman. Imagine him rising, and after proposing the toast of the evening, saying: "Pray charge your glasses, and we will drink to her most prolific majesty, the Cow." And as the guests raise their glasses and solemnly intone, "The Cow." after liim, they break into song, their own special anthem, and, setting a fine example to the populace and expressing their gratitude 13 the source of their golden (more or less) return, sing: "Let's have a tiddly at. the milk bar, And drink to the dear old cow."