Milk bottles have never been a regular feature in our domestic life. While we had a milking herd, milk was stored in my fridge in two big orange Tupperware jugs.

The most recent fill-up from the parlour was always left to stand for the cream to rise to the top for John’s cornflakes. Woe betide any wife or child who dared to pour out of that specific jug until John had spooned off the thick crust of cream for his breakfast. I do not know what it contributed to his cholesterol count, but it doesn’t seem to have done him much harm, so far.

Occasionally old milk bottles have turned up in a pond in the corner of the paddock behind the farmhouse.

I think this particular place must have acted as a midden, or rubbish dump, for the village because when the pond dries up, all sorts of ancient domestic detritus can be seen poking up out of the mud.

Many have a marble cunningly inserted into the top of the bottle. Apparently this is a 19th century invention to replace cork stoppers. The cork had a tendency to dry out and the pop in the bottle thus lost its fizz.

The glass marble was placed inside the bottle when it was cast. The pop was bottled upside down (I don’t know how, but that’s what I’ve been told) and the marble fell against a rubber seal, now long perished in the pond, and the theory was/is that the pressure of the gas from the fizzy pop would hold the marble in place. To drink the soda, you were required to press down the marble and release the pressure with a pop, hence pop bottle, I presume, and the marble rolls into a narrow trough so the pop can be drunk.

Now usually we find these bottles with broken tops as apparently, in defiance of early recycling enthusiasts, children broke the bottles to get the marbles. But just occasionally we come across a complete bottle. These adorn our downstairs toilet shelves – something to ponder on while you are pondering.

One of my favourites is an unusually large bottle, with a raised relief of a cow being milked and the message that the milk is Absolutely Pure in The Milk Protector bottle. Just why the bottle has special properties I have no idea, but I am a sucker for a good spin, so I will believe them.

My favourite inscription on old milk bottle is on one that a friend uses as a vase. The message inscribed was clearly to jog customers into returning their bottles and not bin them. It goes like this:

“This bottle costs ninepence
And’s as brittle as ‘owt.
If you brek it or smash it
I’m working for nowt.”