The fizzy pop lorry. A north eastern phenomenon or a national thing?

Anyone remember the ‘pop man’ who used to deliver your favourite fizzy drinks to your home?

Alpine and Sykes used to deliver round our way BITD. I remember they were still going strong in the 80s but don’t recall seeing them in the 90s.

Nice pop but probably not terribly good for your health. Surprised I have any teeth left, drinking fizzy pop and scranning * quarters of sweets like they were going out of fashion. 😆

* eating…

Used to come on the milk float in the North West IIRC, Barr’s generally (and 10p deposit back on the bottles, cue a generation of Wombles).

We had the Alpine pop wagon come round once a week were I lived in the West Mids.
Dandilion and Birdcock FTW.
I can still remember the shape of the bottles with the ridges around the neck.

🙂

They use beetroot as flavouring now, we must have passed peak burdock years ago.

Yup, the Mineral Man and his shonky van, rotting the teeth of children everywhere.

The Corona man visited us in Surrey until perhaps the mid 70s when the milkman took over the job.

Co-op pop man in Wallsend

when i was kid at school we would walk past the CORONA POP depot, looked inside , huge array of various pops to taste, sadly got chased away, then it closed down.

Milkman delivered it where we grew up, Water’ and Robson’s pop made in the same town.

National.
We had one in Kent, Cresta, R Whites, Rola-Cola etc. We also had a coal man and a peanut man who had a bike (unshelled peanuts in a paper bag).
Believe it or not we have whippets and flat-caps too.

We had Corona Pop delivery during the 70’s and early eighties and then Mom started getting it from Asda. This was in Wednesfield, West Mids.

These were common all over the central belt of Scotland.

Our milk man delivered ours in Norfolk. If we were lucky mum would order some as a treat at xmas

Yep – Edinburgh.

Our milkman also used to deliver orange squash (already diluted) in the wee milk bottles.

For added points, our milk was delivered by horse and cart. The stables were just around the corner from us and as kids we used to play in them. The dairy horses were also used to pull the Queens state carriages, which were kept in the same stables so we used to play in them too!

Mam dropped us off at grandparents Sat am
mince and tatties for dinner (lunch)
Corona man would knock on door,pick flavour (lime or cherry)
Spend pm watching WOS & wrestling.

Not though of that in 30+years

N.E. Lincs

One of my school friends worked on the Pop van. Not sure of the van, but it was Ben Shaw’s brand pop. I used to take bottles back to the local shop so I could visit the arcade to feed my Kung Fu Master and Double Dragon addiction.

I remember going on a tour of the Garvies factory in Milngavie, north of Glasgow, in the mid 70s. Pineappleade was my favourite.

Remember it well in the north east. The pop man.

We also went through a phase of wandering down the back lane behind the local newsagent / sweet-shop, collecting arm-fulls of empty bottles from their crates out-back and then walking back around the front and collecting a bunch of 5p’s off the shop-keeper, “ta mister!”

Still going here in NI
http://www.mainesoftdrinks.co.uk/about-us/

Certainly had them in Glasgow in the late 70s/80s looking at the number of fillings my wife has. We had them in Leeds, we were too poor to afford it. Kiora for me.

Bon Accord used to deliver to us., in Edinburgh. 12 bottles of shitey Bona Cola Elite every week, which we used to drink as fast as possible (and spill/pour away/”accidentally” break the glass bottles) because once it was done we were allowed to switch to pepsi and coke.

The milkman only brought milk but the creme boy also delivered eggs. Poor Scott, we got a lot of jokes out of that. And the fish man delivered fish, rolls, and fruit. Makes me wonder why my mum’s so against using Tesco Direct as it puts local shops out of business. Oh wait. It’s because by refusing to use it, she gets me to go to Tesco instead and saves a fiver.

Definitely national.
Used to get the pop lorry even in a rural village in Kent in the early 80’s.
10p deposit on bottles too (although that was also true of Corona etc. in the village store).

😉

I remember the Alpine pop lorry from my childhood in South Lancs.
I’ve not seen one in years,do they even make Alpine pop these days?

The rather humble looking Bedford TK was the vehicle of choice if my memory serves me right.

my uncle used to do it in the early 90s. We used to get the unsold bottles, which, unfortunately, were always cream soda. yuck.

We used to get it in Kent in 1981/1982. Only place I do remember it from though.

North west.
We had Underwoods lemonade -the pop van delivered to my Nana’s* on a Wednesday .
The yellow lemonade was better than the clear one. 🙂
+1 for dandelion & burdock .
* also too poor for pop.& biscuits!

Alpine man in Bradford, fizzy pop was a luxury..

bottle of lemonade and bottle of D&B from the sykes lorry every friday for us (north east as well). my brother and i used to fight over who would answer the door and hand last week’s empties back to them.

We had the Alpine van too, but my parents would never let us buy from it. 🙁

We also had Jameson’s Vans that were a fleet of ancient purple and black painted mobile hardware shops. From memory they looked like oversized Morris Minors with a green house full of pegs, mops and detergents on the back. I used to knock about with the proprietor’s grandson when I was about 8 years old. The vans lived on the bottom floor of an old barn with the upper floor as a store room. I guess that they went bump in about 1980.

Alpine

Yep, south Leeds in the 70s. Don’t recall seeing one in Wakefield after we moved there in 77

I’ve not seen one in years,do they even make Alpine pop these days?

Looks like they were liquidated.

Our milkie delivers cow juice and eggs and when he’s not out delivering, he’s a flying instructor.

Also in the NE, Teesside, 1960’s.
Two bottles per week, usually cherryade or dandelion & burdock. I also remember a Rington’s tea van, a black-and-yellow three-wheeler.

Barr’s generally (and 10p deposit back on the bottles, cue a generation of Wombles).

I can pretty accurately place someone’s home town in my local area by asking them how they would refer to an empty, glass, Barr’s Irn Bru bottle.

I’d call it a Hector, others would call it a Rammy, some would spend their childhood days searching for Gless Cheques or Gingies or, somewhat less imaginatively , Empties.

If I found one as a kid, I would redeem it at the Tally Van in exchange for a Pokey Hat with Monkey Blood.

We had the alpine wagon too in Liverpool

@moses – ringtons still going strong; i understand they now supply ‘coffee’ 🙂

Tovali here in Carmarthenshire. The shonky yellow truck used to park up opposite every Friday.

I’ve not seen it for a while though.

http://www.tovali.co.uk/

Used to be Corona van as a kid round East Anglian air bases in the 70s and early 80s

Then the milkman took over.