From the time I was a child (1930s) up until my children were approaching their teens (1965) we had daily milk delivery - even during the WWII years when retired milkmen were recalled to old jobs.
The containers were glass, one quart bottles with a cardboard cap that had a tiny flap which allowed easy opening. Cream was delivered in pint bottles and I think it was always heavy cream that could be whipped.
In winter if you didn't take the milk in early the milk would freeze and expand and you'd find the cream - which was on the top of the bottle - above the top of the bottle with the cap jauntily atop the cream!
The Milkman also sold butter and sometimes eggs,too, this was handy when snow storms hit - at least you had something for breakfast. A note in the empty milk bottle was all that was required. Milkmen knew their customers and never seemed to be short of what you needed. Like mailmen, they came in all kinds of weather! The Breadman was also dependable and he had cookies and cakes in addition to bread which, in those days was always white!
After the war, 1945, our milkman told us about the possibility the "bottles" would soon be made of plastic. This, he said would save the company money because plastic bottles could be discarded by homeowners and the truck would not carry the empty milk bottles back to the plant. A lighter load equaling less gas for the truck.
I don't know exactly when home delivery was stopped as we were moving a lot as the Captain's stations changed between 1965 and 1968...but ... when we returned from the Philippines in 1968 home delivery was a thing of the past.
Now I buy milk at corner store or the supermarket and only the Postman still makes daily rounds. In the US before WWII the mail came twice a day - once a day delivery was instituted during the war because of the manpower shortge and never was reinstated.
