Story Line
The lyric's story line is inspired by Hill's early experience as a milkman for Hann's Dairies in Eastleigh, Hampshire. Market Street mentioned in the lyrics is an actual road in Eastleigh. The song tells the fictional exploits of Ernie Price, a 52-year-old (68 in the original TV version) milkman who drives a horse-drawn milk cart. It relates his war with the bread-delivery man ("Two-Ton Ted from Teddington") and their efforts to win the heart of Sue, a widow who lives on her own at number 22, Linley Lane.
In the end the two men fight with the wares they carry on their carts, and Ernie is killed by a rock cake underneath his heart followed by a stale pork pie in his eye (a fresh meat pie in the original TV version).
Sue and Ted then marry, but Ernie's ghost returns to haunt them on their wedding night.
Read more about this topic: Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West)
Famous quotes containing the words story and/or line:
“The impulse to perfection cannot exist where the definition of perfection is the arbitrary decision of authority. That which is born in loneliness and from the heart cannot be defended against the judgment of a committee of sycophants. The volatile essences which make literature cannot survive the clichés of a long series of story conferences.”
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“This wild night, gathering the washing as if it were flowers
animal vines twisting over the line and
slapping my face lightly, soundless merriment
in the gesticulations of shirtsleeves ...”
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