Now that summer time is officially here, we frequently hear the recorded sounds which announce the arrival of the ice cream (motor) van in our various neighbourhoods. It was all rather different sixty and more years ago.

One of our members remembers summertime ice cream when she was a girl, living in Harbour Crescent, just a short distance from the Gaping Goose public house in Slack Bottom Road. Occasionally — for ice cream was a treat and not the easy to buy tubs which we now keep in our freezers - she would be sent by her mother to buy ice cream from Mr Mark Barker who was the landlord of 'the Goose'. He and his family lived not in or above the public house but in the attached house which was not licensed premises.

Our member was instructed very strongly by her mother to go to the house door and not to the public house. She took with her a basin to hold the ice cream as she returned home as quickly as possible. Ice cream, then, was really only a hot weather treat.

It is not known whether Mrs Barker, the landlord's wife, made the ice cream herself, but the bulk of it appears to have been sold by the landlord's brother from his ice cream cart. This was painted bright yellow and white and was drawn by a brown and white pony. Its arrival in any particular place was announced by the ringing of a handbell. The ice cream man was rather large and there hardly seemed room for him and his equipment in the dainty cart.
Cornets were halfpenny or a penny each, and sandwiches either one or two pence each. For a time there were also `patties'- small, round sandwiches — at a halfpenny, for those youngsters who thought cornets were only for babies!

To be concluded...Stella H Carpenter

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