IT started when someone dropped a couple of old photos into our office that had been picked up at a car boot sale and showed milk deliveries as they were a long time ago.

Where they came from and who features in them is a complete mystery, but if anyone knows, please get in touch. As you can see, one shows a lad going round the neighbourhood with a handcart belonging to Griffiths Dairies, which was apparently established in 1848, while the other is of the rather more mobile horse pulled milk float belonging to R Jones. It is a long shot, but recognise anyone?

We've decided to feature on the rest of the page a rather more photogenic side of the dairy business. I may, of course, be wrong, but dairy maid competitions seem to have rather gone out of fashion these days. There was a time when this slightly more demure side of the beauty queen business was a regular attraction in this newspaper. Young ladies with a mostly farming background would line up in village halls, Winter Gardens or public halls for the honour of wearing the sash for a year.

Here are some photographs to jog the memory of the way it was back then.