Trevor Jones MBE is a long-serving Valleys milkman whose picture was taken by a Time-Life photographer delivering milk from his horse and cart in industrial Tredegar. The former soldier was honoured for services to the community in 1999.

BEFORE I took on the milk round I did my National Service in the army. I served two years with the South Wales Borderers and became a Lance Corporal.

A lot of that time was in the Middle East. I was stationed in Cyprus in 1948 where we were guarding camps set up to house Jewish migrants trying to get to Palestine. I was there for 12 months guarding the refugees who were wanting to leave Europe and go to Palestine. Even though they paraded with a sign saying 'Bevin (Ernest the British Foreign Secretary at the time) - the next Hitler' relations between us were always good.

There were some lighter moments. The Shah of Iran came to visit in Nicosia and the regimental band had come to play for him, but they played the wrong anthem - it was the song of the opposition in his country (which we thought sounded like a popular song at the time 'All The Cowhands Want To Marry Harriet'). "That's the song of the people who killed my father" he said. So the band played 'Men of Harlech' which was the only tune they could play without music.

I then went to Khartoum in Sudan. We sailed from Cyprus to Port Said in Egypt and then by train to Khartoum.

When I served in Khartoum we formed a choir and on Good Friday we performed in the cathedral and sang 'When I Survey The Wondrous Cross' and 'O Sacred Heart So Wounded'. It sounded wonderful. A lot of us only did it to get out of parades as it was so very hot there.

I was originally supposed to have served 18 months but it was extended to two years while I was serving. At the time I hated it, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

I was demobbed later in 1949 and I went started working the milk round then. My father and his father before them had done it. My grandfather had many strings to his bow. He was a musician, an insurance agent and also a hay and silage merchant.

It was not long after I had started the round that a famous picture of me was taken. I was on our horse and cart delivering milk with my brother, it would have been 1950.

The picture was taken on Park Place in Tredegar and the photographer came up to us and asked if he could take our picture. He said his name was Eugene Smith and he worked for Time Life magazine.

He offered us half a crown each, which we accepted and he stood on top of a car to take it. He said he would send us a copy which he never did, but a Mr Powell from Tredegar found the picture in a book he read in a library in Singapore.

He sent a copy home and that was how I found out about it. The picture makes me feel very proud. Proud of the work me and my brother used to do, working on our horse and cart in our town. It could be hard work. We had pails we would deliver the milk in which were 10, 12 or 17 gallon and these had to be carried to people's houses. The two-wheeled cart could be tricky to load as you couldn't have the horse bearing too much of the weight.

I always remember the women who would follow the cart and scoop up the muck to put on their rhubarb. It was powerful stuff, because the ammonia in it used to burn the tarmac.

We got our first van in 1952. It was an Austin 10 and I can still remember the registration FDD 540. The van was easier. You didn't have to start work at 7 o' clock in the morning to muck it out and feed it. With a van, you pressed a button and it all worked: much better until the bills came in! It was more expensive to run a van than a horse.

You wouldn't think it, but you wouldn't get as wet on the cart as in the van if it was raining! In the cart you were stood up and it just fell off you. In the van, you sat there and got wetter every time you got out.

It was partly because if my work on my round that I was awarded the MBE in 1999.

It was for services to the community. That was for things like the customers of mine who were blind - I would read their mail for them.

I always tried to help the people on my round. One time a man called Bryn Gardener came and said his wife was stuck in the bathtub. Because I knew my customers, I knew there were two nurses who lived on the street. They brought some towels and looped one under her arms and hoisted her up and ‘pop!’ she came out! I have heard too that my father saved a girl's life while on his round. A customer said his little daughter had swallowed a marble, so he held her upside down by her feet, slapped her back and the marble fell out.

I had to stop work about ten years ago after I had a heart attack, but before that I only ever had three days off work – for my honeymoon. We went to the Regent Palace Hotel in London. At school I won awards for my attendance, they even gave me an engraved watch after I completed five years’ attendance.

I couldn't go to Buckingham Palace to receive the MBE, my wife was sick and I was too busy. So instead the ceremony was at the Civic Centre in Ebbw Vale, but I preferred it that way. At Buckingham Palace I would have only had two guests, here I had 12! We had food laid on and it lasted all day and the Lord Lieutenant presented it to me. It was very special.