Continued from last month...

Our member liked to watch ice cream sandwiches being made and
turned out onto greaseproof paper. If more than one was required, they would be stacked criss-cross until the order was completed. It was good ice cream, bearing no resemblance to the white blocks of what seemed to be frozen fat produced by the large commercial manufacturers whose salesmen on bicycles also plied their trade in the summer months.

It was sometimes possible to buy ice cream from one of the older houses in St Helena Road. When the ice cream tub was set on the top of the house steps, we knew that ice cream was for sale.

One Saturday afternoon our member and her brother trotted round from Harbour Crescent to spend their halfpennies on ice cream. Coming back, licking their cornets, she tripped on the rough pavement in Harbour Road. To her horror, the ice cream toppled off the cornet and lay there on the dusty ground. There was no possibility of retrieving the ice cream - though her brother magnanimously offered her a lick of his!

Announcing the tragedy at home to her parents, she was blamed for being careless and wasting good ice cream. There was no question of a further halfpenny to buy another!

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