Milk enthusiast collects 20,000 bottles over 40 years

Paul Luke's collection also included plastic seals, golden foil and photographs of milk floats

A self-confessed milk enthusiast has collected 20,000 glass bottles during an unwavering 40-year commitment.

Paul Luke, 46, said some of the items he had amassed since the age of six dated back to the 1850s.

The former milkman, from Corringham, Essex, even had a shed built in his garden to store his ever-growing collection.

"I just started collecting everything to do with milk really," Mr Luke said.

The dedicated dairyman, who works in Basildon, said he used to help his local milkman as a child after being interested in the "community feel" of the job.

The 46-year-old has started using his 1950s-style milk float to deliver goods in glass bottles to thirsty customers

He started keeping mementoes when organisations such as Kelloggs, Essex Police and Maxwell House would advertise on the bottles.

"It went from having nine bottles on my mum and dad's sideboard in the kitchen, to a shelf, to buying my own shed," Mr Luke told BBC News.

"Most days the milkmen were delivering more empty bottles to our house than full ones."

'Old school'

The enthusiast's collection has since swelled to include plastic seals with Christmas messages written on them and photographs of electric milk floats.

"It's all a record of social history really, because you think of a milk bottle and how much it gets used - we're talking hundreds and hundreds of times," he added.

Mr Luke believes low-level crime was less common when more milkmen patrolled the streets

The 46-year-old, who once edited the Milk Bottle News website, even believed low-level crime had worsened due to fewer people delivering milk on the streets.

"There was less crime back when I was younger because every road you went down, there was a milkman loitering," he explained.

Mr Luke also said he had recently relaunched his own glass bottle delivery company, offering milkshakes, smoothies and juices inside.

He added that 50 customers had signed up across south Essex and he would undertake deliveries on his days off from working at a dairy farm.

"It will be really old school. Where possible, I'll be driving my old milk float," Mr Luke said.

"It will be great to be back out on the streets again, watching out for the community and making sure nothing untoward is happening in the early hours."