Abstract
'Two Pints Please' is a collaborative, practice-based study that investigates the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of door-step milk delivery with electric milk floats in England in the early 21st century between 2007 and 2024. Through this study, as a creative cultural historian of the commonplace, I have combined archival historical research and creative ethnographic field study in collaboration with five working dairies and the Transport Museum Wythall. I examined how the unique design of electric milk floats and the hard work of those who are employed in the industry create their own cultural heritage.
In the context of this study, photography is an enabler, a facilitator, a creative and reflective tool, a data source, and a communicator. It holds the project together and fosters a material-discursive perspective to simultaneously perceive the everyday material, social and temporal facets that form cultural heritage over time. The quality of medium-format colour film photography and digital storytelling (combining photography with audio sound recordings and interviews) elevates the subject to illustrate the value these humble but culturally significant commercial vehicles and their drivers have for some communities.
My practice-based historical research methodology is shared as a pedagogical resource with the aim of encouraging other creative cultural historians to find their voice to investigate and represent cultural heritage and history collaboratively from different perspectives.
All material produced from 'Two Pints Please' is publicly available at The Transport Museum Wythall (Worcestershire) archive. It consists of a photography book, a set of printed postcards, seven digital storytelling films, a podcast, a map, and an illustrated PhD thesis. A substantial resource for future researchers on the subject and a testimony to the disappearing practice of door-step delivery with electric milk floats.
In the context of this study, photography is an enabler, a facilitator, a creative and reflective tool, a data source, and a communicator. It holds the project together and fosters a material-discursive perspective to simultaneously perceive the everyday material, social and temporal facets that form cultural heritage over time. The quality of medium-format colour film photography and digital storytelling (combining photography with audio sound recordings and interviews) elevates the subject to illustrate the value these humble but culturally significant commercial vehicles and their drivers have for some communities.
My practice-based historical research methodology is shared as a pedagogical resource with the aim of encouraging other creative cultural historians to find their voice to investigate and represent cultural heritage and history collaboratively from different perspectives.
All material produced from 'Two Pints Please' is publicly available at The Transport Museum Wythall (Worcestershire) archive. It consists of a photography book, a set of printed postcards, seven digital storytelling films, a podcast, a map, and an illustrated PhD thesis. A substantial resource for future researchers on the subject and a testimony to the disappearing practice of door-step delivery with electric milk floats.
| Original language | English |
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| Qualification | Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) |
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| Award date | 18 Mar 2025 |
| Place of Publication | Kingston upon Thames, U.K. |
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| Publication status | Accepted/In press - 18 Mar 2025 |
| Externally published | Yes |
PhD type
- Standard route