David Lopes is 'churning' a living

Dedicated: While David Lopes bucket milks these days, he still uses many traditional methods in the dairy business. *Photos by Nicola Muirhead

It’s not just a cow,’ David Lopes confides as he looks back on more than half a century in the milk game.

He was just 16 when he cycled his first churn of milk from the family home in Smith’s to the old Pioneer Guernsey Dairy on Store Hill.

The enthusiastic teen carefully jotted down ‘February 16: 8 1/2 quarts’ in a little black notebook and rode off down the road with the churn rattling between his knees.

Today, 55 years later, the popular radio host is up at 4am every morning to milk his small herd of cows and drops in his quota to Dunkley’s Dairy on his way to work.

Mr Lopes still uses the same little black notebook to record his delivery and he’s the last dairy farmer using the traditional milk churns.

More than a job

“It’s more than just a job,” he says.

“It’s something I have been doing for most of my life and I have always enjoyed working with dairy cattle.”

Over the last 55 years Mr Lopes has completed thousands of trips between his Smith’s home and the shifting headquarters of the island’s milk supply chain.

He may have swapped his pedal cycle for a truck, but he continues to use many of the old tools of the trade.

When he made his first milk run on February 16, 1959, Bermuda’s milk operation was run by Pioneer Guernsey Dairy based up on Store Hill in Smith’s.

In the early 1960’s Pioneer amalgamated with Dunkley’s and the operation shifted to Belmer Drive in Devonshire, before moving to its current location a few years later.

In the late 1960s Mr Lopes bought the Spittal Farm dairy farm and looked after a herd of between 40 and 50 cows.

He sold it after 12 years in 1981 and returned to the smaller home-based milk operation he had run before.

“I have always had a cow,” Mr Lopes said.

“I got interested in dairy farming in my teens when we lived in Smith’s parish and it grew from there.

Pedal cycle

“At first I had a pedal cycle and I fitted a box
between my knees so that I could carry the milk to the depot.When I first started I milked by hand and then I was bucket milking for around 30 years.

“I would deliver pretty much every day of the year including Christmas and Cup Match.”

Today Mr Lopes has just two Jersey cows and delivers around 45 quarts of milk a day to Dunkley’s when his cows are calving.

He added: “I milk my cows twice a day — once in the morning and once in the afternoon.

“So I’m up at 4am and I deliver the churn before I go to work at ZBM. And then I milk them again at 4pm in the afternoon.

“It’s a way of life.

“It’s a big commitment; some people understand it, others don’t.

“Over the years I have changed my breed.

“I really liked the Ayrshire for a long time, but they have got a bit big for me in my latter years.

“Now Jerseys are the fastest-expanding dairy breeds in the world.

“I bring mine in from Pennsylvania.

“A lot of things have changed about  how the dairy farm industry works over the years, but some things have remained the same for me like my little black book and the old-style churns I use.”