BRIAN Cousins has delivered milk to the community for 40 years, starting his round at 11.30pm and finishing at 8am, providing the service come rain or shine.

Sadly, an attack by hooded yobs has now left him so shaken and distressed, that he has decided it is time to give up.

It is disgraceful that at the age of 70, a couple of cowardly youths have forced him to call it a day after working so hard to keep his round going for so long.

He had been attacked once previously, in the exact same street in Girlington, 18 months earlier, but the latest one has proved the final straw for Mr Cousins.

His customers have described the decision as the end of an era, and that is a very apt way to refer to it.

Milk rounds in many ways hark back to an earlier, more gentle, time, and there are few of them left nowadays – and now there is one less.

The thugs who did this have probably never done a hard day’s work in their life. Yet their actions have brought to a premature and undignified end the profession of a community stalwart, whose boots they are not fit to lace.

It is unlikely that these yobs will feel any pang of guilt or conscience as a result of their actions.

But it may be that someone in the area has had them bragging about their despicable behaviour, or a family member knows who they are.

If they do, they must report them so they can be brought before the justice system and named and shamed in their community.