Ice Cream Vans

[Razed]

Re: Ice Cream Vans

Our 'regular' was an Italian man and I seem to remember him having really dirty fingers :/. He had the teddy bear's picnic tune. I lived in a cul-de-sac so we had extra precious time to leg it indoors when he came up the road. It was always a frantic dash to the house then hopping on the spot impatiently as you waited for your mum to dig some change out of her purse. Then the frantic sprint back to the ice cream van. It was always a tough choice but I remember the most expensive was the 'Oyster'. It was a shell-shaped cone full of icecream with nuts and sauce on it. That was a rarity as it cost £1.20! In the days when it was about 20p for a 'cone' that was unthinkable.

Unfortunately for me if I missed the van, that was it. I remember the van coming to my aunt's house though. She lived on a long straight road so it wasn't so bad if you missed his stop; you just might end up running half a mile down the road to catch him up.

Now and then a different van would turn up but Romano the Italian guy probably caught wind and saw them off .

Randomly I became friends with a guy when I was about 7 and both his parents were 'ice cream people' so I actually got to go out in a van one day. I remember they had 2 huge chest freezers in the dining room. Unfortunately we couldn't eat any scoop ice cream (it was delish) but his parents would always let us have a broken lolly each during the summer. Luckily they didn't have Whippy machines or I probably would have been caught with my mouth open trying to dispense it directly from the machine into my stomach .

Damn, a few years ago at Uni an ice cream van randomly stopped near the house I was sharing. All 4 of us 20 year olds got really excited and I found myself going straight back to the days of being a 7 year old, running round looking for change then running out on the street in my flip flops excited to get a lolly!

Re: Ice Cream Vans

My Mum once said that they probably also sell hot dogs and burgers these days hence coming out in bad weather and winter...

[Richard1978]

Re: Ice Cream Vans

I get a few ice cream vans near me, even though it's not really a residential area.

Sometimes I've heard the chimes quite late at night, & sometimes in weather that isn't really the best to put you in the mood for an ice cream.

Re: Ice Cream Vans

Klop - that icecream man with his flies down and no undies sounded like a paedo!

I can't remember the ones we had when I were a lad but they usually played Greensleeves - I expect they were Mr Whippy ones as I adored and still do love the whippy style white creamy ice creams in a cone...I can also remember how kids went mad back then for ice cream from the vans, everyone on here probably remembers that classic Tufty ad where Willy Weasel gets knocked down for running from out behind parked cars just to get his ice cream! So the image on the back of the vans (usually Bedford's or Transits back then) was all the more important to me - I still look at them when I see one out of the blue and smile remembering bygone childhood...

I also vividly recall the van turning up across the street when I was about 4 and my Mum said 'You like (an) ice cream?' I said yes, and then Mum being Mum decided to put on some Astral facial moisturiser, a nice cardigan, some red lippy AND then we FINALLY left the house, quarter of the way across the street and yes, you've all guessed it, Mr Whippy was pulling out and off.... I find it rather funny now looking back, my Mum never left the house looking her best...bless...

It was also a wonderful, balmy summers evening at that...I remember she told Dad and he felt sorry for me that I didn't get one...he may have got a tub of Lyons Maid yellowy ice cream I think to make up for it...and some cones...lol...

You just don't see many around my way these days, and when you do, its usually on dull, dreary, cold winters days! I remember a van used to come literally down my road where I am now back in 87 - to the 90s and early 2000's say, different vans mind, and apparently he told my Mum the other guy had 'words' with him as he was coming onto 'his patch' so one of the guys stopped coming....anyhow, Ice Cream Vans to me really symbolise the perfect simplicity of childhood joy our generations had - kids could even run down the street alone and come home safe with ice creams, now your kid would 'probably end up in a dead in a ditch in Scotland or by the Motorway as my parents would say!' by the next day thanks to the way societies turned out...shame that.

I do buy a Whippy ice cream in a cone, sometimes with a Flake on hot days from a tiny kiosk next to BHS on my high street, £1.30 with Flake, £1.20 without depending on the mood...lush.

Incidentally, I can ACTUALLY hear an Ice Cream Van just now! Damn! No cash on me! I'm not kidding - spooky that. It was playing 'Teddy Bears Picnic'....lol, another favourite tune from the vans...Also, wonder why they call then '99's'? Italian pasta makers used numbers as a way of coding which shape of pasta mold to make certain pastas i.e. Conchigle, Penne, Spagetti, so given the Italians were also selling Pasta they used the number coding to denote the larger '99' ice cream...not a lot of people know that!

[darren]

Re: Ice Cream Vans

wow what a thread.

i remember very well as a kid hearing the ice cream van coming to our street.
i said mummy mummy give me the money for an ice cream.

me and the other kids did not get long to get to him as he would not wait long.

every time he came it was a mad rush to get to the ice cream van.

there was always a big queue of kids,in fact i think the adults where the real kids.

i do not live in the part of the town where the ice cream van goes but i still hear it.
in fact i think there is just one in my town now although iim not certain 1 hundred per cent.

my fAVE WAS PROBABLY the biggest cones with flakes in them.

[stud1al]

Re: Ice Cream Vans

Wish I could remember the name of the guy who came round with ours.The van was as old as the hills too,you went in the back to get served.I don't think it came from either of the cafes close to us either.We had Johnnys(he was Polish!) near my gran who did a mean Knickerboker glory and The Firpark cafe ran by Mrs Cummings who was 150 even then!She must have married a Scotsman though cos she was as Italian as got out.They had a secret recipe which I think died with her,or at least her daughter new it,but it wasn't passed on to new owners.This was the BEST ice cream ever,they did great ice cream floats with cola or American cream soda.

Johnny's shop got knocked down,but even into the late 80's the Fir Park cafe never changed,it was ancient!!!

Interesting to note both cafes had their resident cats,which usually lay on top of the ancient fridge where the ice lollies were kept!

tulip

My dad was an ice cream man for a while.I remember he picked me up from school one day in his van and i was serving all the kids.My dad had been told by a friend and workmate that he was going to be sacked so it was cheap ice cream for all

[memoman]

Re: Ice Cream Vans

http://www.oxforddiecast.co.uk/CA004...ell%20Pink.htm

I see they released a diecast model.

http://www.freeindex.co.uk/images%28...%29_252358.htm

some images you uploaded?

[Kiop]

Re: Ice Cream Vans

When at secondary school there was supposed to be a local newsagent which sold single cigarettes under the counter for 20p (when a packet of 20 was less than £4!), if you knew who to ask.

As I've never been interesting in smoking I never found which one.

We used to buy a ciggie and a match for 6p from our local sweet shop, lol.

Sorry for the off-topic.

Our local ice cream man was called Cherry's - his stuff was always inferior to the Mr Whippy but I hear the business is still going strong today so he must have got something right.

[Richard1978]

Re: Ice Cream Vans

There was a icey, ran by ne'erdowells years ago that alongside his frozen treats also sold cans of Carling Black Label and loose Benson & Hedges.

He never asked for ID, not like the papershop.

I've only just kicked the smoking habit earlier this year, 20 years later!

When at secondary school there was supposed to be a local newsagent which sold single cigarettes under the counter for 20p (when a packet of 20 was less than £4!), if you knew who to ask.

As I've never been interesting in smoking I never found which one.

[glam_racket]

Re: Ice Cream Vans

There was a icey, ran by ne'erdowells years ago that alongside his frozen treats also sold cans of Carling Black Label and loose Benson & Hedges.

He never asked for ID, not like the papershop.

I've only just kicked the smoking habit earlier this year, 20 years later!

[Richard1978]

Re: Ice Cream Vans

There's one ice cream van in the Stockport area which plays a certain tune (not sure what it is, sounds a bit like the Archers, but not bang on), I used to hear it all the time when I lived in Marple, & even now I've moved into Stockport I can hear it occasionally.

There were 2 Ice Cream companies Granelli's of Cheadle (don't know if they are still around) & Sivori's, who I think are still going.

As well as operating vans, Sivori's also sold ice cream in shops. My Mum probably has some old tubs from both companies around the house.

Not really about Ice Cream, but this is a good set of photos of a closed but left intact old school cafe run by an Italian family:
Savoy Cafe - a set on Flickr

[tulip]

Re: Ice Cream Vans

Wish I could remember the name of the guy who came round with ours.The van was as old as the hills too,you went in the back to get served.I don't think it came from either of the cafes close to us either.We had Johnnys(he was Polish!) near my gran who did a mean Knickerboker glory and The Firpark cafe ran by Mrs Cummings who was 150 even then!She must have married a Scotsman though cos she was as Italian as got out.They had a secret recipe which I think died with her,or at least her daughter new it,but it wasn't passed on to new owners.This was the BEST ice cream ever,they did great ice cream floats with cola or American cream soda.

Johnny's shop got knocked down,but even into the late 80's the Fir Park cafe never changed,it was ancient!!!

Interesting to note both cafes had their resident cats,which usually lay on top of the ancient fridge where the ice lollies were kept!

tulip

[fluffygirl]

Re: Ice Cream Vans

My dad told us a story from when he was a lad - his parents told him that if the ice cream van played a tune, then the ice cream van had ran out of ice cream! Thats just mean!

Obviously if the ice cream van HAD ice cream and didn't play a tune, you wouldn't know he was coming! So my dad didn't get an ice cream either way.

[Kiop]

Ice Cream Van

I always remember asking him to dip my cone in 'Kay-lie', it was delicious. One of the vans that came round had a game called 'Lucky 7' which featured a wheel in the window with numbers on it which spun round - if it stopped on number 7 you got a free ice cream.

Also, I remember a very scruffy ice cream man that always had his flies undone and he didn't wear any underwear . I remember my parents and others put a complaint in about him and he was never seen again.

I always prefered Mr whippy and Mr Cornish. Used to love those round plastic cone things filled with ice cream with a gum ball in the bottom (I think they were called snowballs or screwballs).

One last thing, used to love winding the ice cream man up by asking him how much his penny bubblies were. LOL.

[magneticfly]

Re: Ice Cream Vans

and an irregular one called Rossi's. Rossi didn't have a whippy ice cream machine. Instead he'd cut a piece off a block and, sort of, wedge it on a cone. You ran the risk of it falling off but it was fabulous ice cream, vanilla flecked with chocolate bits. He also had a superb dark red raspberry lolly, shaped like a pyramid. Alas, he didn't get around that often and, eventually, not at all

.

Sarfend boy by any chance?