The milk tokens used in Carswell End were deliberately difficult to mistake for coins. They were light, slightly larger than a penny and pierced near the edge so that several could be carried on a string. Their value was understood within the delivery round, where one familiar object could replace a conversation at an inconvenient hour.
Households bought tokens when the collector called on Thursdays. In the morning, a token was left beside the empty container to indicate the usual order. Additional tokens altered the quantity. The system suited residents who left early for work and those who preferred to settle a week's small purchases in one visit.
It depended on local knowledge as much as metal. At one door, the token belonged beneath an upturned cup; at another, it waited on the inside window ledge. A substitute delivery worker carried a list of these arrangements. The instructions resemble directions through a miniature landscape of gates, steps, loose catches and particular expectations.
Children frequently became responsible for putting the tokens out. Recollections of the round give this task a significance out of proportion to its size. It was a first household duty with a visible consequence: forget the disc and the morning's routine became more complicated. Spare tokens were consequently kept in places adults considered sensible and children found difficult to remember.
The discs outlasted the arrangement. They reappeared in button tins and desk drawers, detached from the route that had given them meaning. Their worn surfaces say little about milk itself. They speak more clearly of an economy organised around repeated visits, recognisable doors and the belief that tomorrow's small exchange would resemble today's.