Milk bars and an American diner

If you're interested in social history there's an interesting piece on the BBC website about National Milk Bars.

Contrary to its name, National Milk Bars were never national. At its peak the company had 17 branches in Wales and the north-west of England.

Nevertheless, there was a period when milk bars were far more common than they are today.

The idea came from America in the Thirties and they were popular in the Forties and Fifties when they were recommended by the temperance movement as an alternative to the pub.

It's not strictly true to say that the National Milk Bars café in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, is the very last of its kind because milk bars do exist elsewhere, although you'd have to look hard to find one.

As it happens, I will be in Scotland next week and if I have time I am hoping to visit Powmill Milk Bar near Kinross.

It's in a very rural location and I stumbled on it by complete chance a few years ago when I took a detour en route to St Andrews.

As I wrote at the time, there was a great selection of cakes, coffees and milk shakes!

It reminded me of the first time I experienced an American-style diner – which wasn't in the States, funnily enough, but in Covent Garden.

Fat Boy's Diner was described as a 'classic 1950s-style chrome-and-neon diner with counter stools, for burgers, hot dogs and milkshakes'.

Other Fat Boy's Diners were purpose built but this one was a converted train carriage that had been renovated and shipped to the UK from the US in the Nineties.

The Maiden Lane location was only temporary, though, because it sat on a small parcel of land that was due to be redeveloped.

I went there several times before the novelty wore off and when I back some time later it had gone.

I have never forgotten that first time, however. Truly, it was like stepping on to the set of Back To The Future!