A former milkman has collected up to 20,000 different milk bottles across 40 years—with some dating all the way back to the 1800's.

Milk enthusiast Paul Luke, 47, has been collecting dairy memorabilia his whole life, even having to build a "museum" in his back garden to store the selection. "

The dedicated collector from Corringham, Essex, fell in love with milk when he was six years old and would help the local milkmen to do deliveries.

The dairy farm employee has since collected between 15,000-20,000 bottles and estimates he has another 20,000 in spares.

His favourites are local bottles from Essex based dairies, and colourful ones from the 1950's—while his oldest bottle dates all the way back to 1850.

He said: "When I was about six, I used to help all the local milkmen, and the milk bottles went from being quite plain- with just the dairy name embossed into the glass- to a lot of advertising all over them from Kellogg's and coffee companies. "

"I thought they looked quite interesting, and they seemed to come about and disappear quite quickly. So, I decided to save one of each of the different ones. "

"I went from a small collection to where I am now with thousands of milk bottles and related bits and pieces. "

"They are all over the place. I have them on display in a museum in my garden."

"My parents and my siblings have always been supportive of it." "

He jokingly remarked: "I wouldn't say my Mrs is the same way inclined. But I am not spending lots of money in the pub or doing drugs so it could be worse."

Paul sadly had to move his collection out of his "museum" shed, but he now has an impressive milk bottle wall in his home office- with the rest in storage. "

He has also collected three retro milk floats from as early as 1959, and he uses one of these from 1973 to deliver his own products in the neighbourhood.

The nostalgic vehicles on average cost upwards of £3,000- but they require a lot of work and repairs.

Paul sourced his three from local dairies as he has contacts within them, and says that he saved them from being scrapped.

He said: "Milk bottles are a nightmare to store because they are so large, but collecting vehicles is a whole new ball game. "

"Two of them are three wheelers, so they don't take to the roads well, and the accelerator and the break are the other way around which can be confusing. I did have to have 2025 technology meet 1973 a bit. "

"People love it. They think they have gone into a trance and woken up in the sixties. It makes a lot of people smile when I go past them."

The dairy lover believes milkmen were an important part of society, inspiring a community feel and even lowering the crime rates.

He added: "I think the amount of crime that is now out and about wasn't there all those years ago, and one of the reasons is because anywhere you went on any street you knew there would be milkmen all over the place."

Last year, Paul relaunched his own glass bottle delivery company called Ecofresh Dairy- offering milkshakes, smoothies and juices to locals in Essex with a lot of interest.

He added: "I was really interested in the dairies that were disappearing and I thought it would be interesting to keep their memory alive. "

"I just thought I would give it a go again by myself, just for myself."

"There is obviously a want from customers to have these services."