There came a moment, "Jimmy" Mather tells me, when he realised that the world as he knew it was changing and that he would have to change with it. He encountered a housewife on her doorstep. Nothing unusual about that. He is a milkman.
But when she tried to place an order, he didn't really know what she was talking about. There wasn't much call for Gujarati when Jimmy grew up in Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, or in his early days guiding a horse and cart around Blackburn. But he could see the area was changing fast, and anyway, it seemed more sensible to engage, for the business and for his own curiosity. Gujarati, thought Jimmy. I'd better learn.
That was almost half a century ago and now, riding beside Jimmy in his timeworn delivery van, what is immediately noticeable is that when people approach, no one greets him in English. "They tell me I speak the language better than some of them," he says, writing an order in his ledger book. "You listen, talk and soon pick it up. I have a good brain for remembering these things."
In days past, Jimmy hauled the crates and skipped from house to house, shop to shop, handing over milk, eggs, yoghurt, butter. But at 69, he isn't as strong or healthy as he was. He is still out there, seven days a week, including Christmas, driving down the narrow streets, passing the time through a wound-down window in Gujarati, sometimes Bengali. But others do the running about. Today it's a lean, smiling young man, Usman Yakub. "I've worked with him on and off since I was a kid," he says. "He has had a lot of us working with him."
"Best way to keep them out of trouble; get them to do something with their lives," interjects the milkman, staring straight ahead.
He should pack it in now, really. He's done his bit, seen families arrive, watched their children grow, received invites to quite a few weddings. But he won't. Once you have a place in a community it's probably hard to imagine life without it. "I'd miss the people," he says, voice reduced to a gentle whisper. "I'd come back anyway to speak to the people. May as well stay put."