A Saga of Fire and Ice Lollies.

1Summer I think we grew up in the same city, I always thought they were called D Di's too. We moved to a Norfolk seaside town 7 years ago and the the ice cream shop on the prom is called Di Mascio. I was telling the owner about D Di Mascio turns out it was his uncle's business and he had photos of him from when he first came to England. His ice cream is delicious too. My favourite back in the day was a cider lolly or a wafer. I can still remember the tune he played.

I remember my dad taking me to Notorianni’s in Bridlington (I think) to try their ice cream, as he’d been in Italy during the war and wanted me to taste the real thing. Loved Italian ice cream ever since!

Forgot to add - ice cream was a rare treat in those days and was usually in the form of a long, oblong slab of Neapolitan ice cream that came in a cardboard wrapping. It was sliced up and sandwiched between two wafers. Because there was no way of saving any for later it all got eaten in one sitting, but there were four of us and I think father must have had the lion’s share.

We didn’t have a fridge when I was little, but we had a marble slab on the pantry shelf and a stone floor which always felt cool underfoot. We also had a square manhole cover near the back door which covered a well and mother used to put bottles of milk in a metal bucket and lower that down the well shaft. The rope attached to the bucket handle would be tied to a broom handle placed across the top of the shaft. How nobody ever tripped over it or fell down the well I’ll never know!

Banana Big K milk lollies! Always a winner!

When I was 10 1/2, l was in an adults’ ENT ward having mastoid surgery on my ear (major operation which is why I wasn’t in the children’s ward) and stayed for two weeks. Most of the other patients had had their tonsils removed and ice cream was thought to be helpful in healing afterwards (l still agree with that theory) so was on the menu each day. There was nothing wrong with my throat but ice cream was a fairly rare treat so l chose it every day.

My favourite was Pink Elephant. This was a choc ice with strawberry ice cream and l think cost 2 or 3 p. I also liked Strawberry Splits and Fab lollies.

I used to love a Nougat, where one wafer was substituted for a nougat!

Another orange jubbly fan here. A gang of us used to club together to buy a large block of walls ice cream sandwich and a bottle of dandelion and burdock pop, share it out in tall glasses, ice cream at the bottom and slurp, yummy. When in Italy (I wish), a brioche con gelato goes down nicely.

One of my favs was same as Kim19 , not allowed to say now ( might have been a Scottish phrase ) but same, only as special treat. Loved jubblies, strawberry mivvis and turquoise ice poles . When mum bought ice cream from corner shop , they cut it off a large block then wrapped in newspaper to keep cool. Also remember my mum putting milk bottles in a soaking wet dimpled sponge jacket to keep cool, think she bought from ideal home exhibition. Happy days ?

We had Rossi’s Italian ice cream van come round (1958) and they had a gadget where they put a flat wafer at the bottom, then took a spatula-full of ice cream and scraped it on the sides of the gadget. Then they put another wafer on the top and slid a lever which pushed the wafer out of the top. It was the most wonderful ice cream, really creamy and yellow and it had ice crystals throughout. My mouth is watering just thinking of it, yum!

The other frozen treat I remember from the 60's and 70's was blocks of frozen mousse; I think Birds Eye did them. Mum would send us to the corner shop just before Sunday lunch, and we'd have them for "afters".

Widnesbabcia

Walls heart lollys
Choc covered heart shaped ice cream with a red blob in the middle

I used to get one of those from the kiosk when we went to a nearby outdoor swimming pool. I also used to like a Raspberry Split-it was like a Mivvi, but with raspberry ice instead of strawberry.

God bless us Alioop - that’s a relief !!!

Infinity2 oh you have made me roar at your description of what you imagine a Pear Picking Porkie to be like, it's actually very boring and just a pear flavoured ice lolly

When I was small a local sweet shop sold ice cream from a serving hatch near the door. They sold Walls, but also their own homemade ice cream - strawberry, chocolate and vanilla - scooped into cones. The strawberry was simply the very best I've ever tasted, never found anything to beat it. I sometimes got an extra big scoop if Mum bought cigarettes as well.

Ice cream was a very occasional treat usually reserved for holidays. I wasn't allowed to get ice cream from the vans that stopped in our street, Mum thought it was a rather common practice.

Occasionally Mum and I went to Angel Market, Islington where there was an Italian ice cream parlour. If she was feeling rich we'd have a small cone each. Lovely ice cream.

Mivvis were my favourite too, any flavour.

We never had a fridge at home until I started work and could buy one. It had to go in the living room because the kitchen was too small. The ice box was tiny, only room for a tray of ice cubes and a pack of peas!

These days I make my own ice cream and I'm still trying to perfect that wonderful strawberry flavour I remember.

Last time we were in Italy, my husband wanted an ice cream and pointed to what he thought was a chocolate one. Fortunately the salesperson spoke English as he pointed out that the brown ice cream was actually tobacco flavoured! Ugh, can you imagine??
Much earlier in my life, we lived in Hong Kong. There was an ice cream shop called The Dairy Queen, where they sold mango ice cream with fresh mango squeezed over the top, and a wonderful choc chip mint one as well.

It was the Italians who made the ice cream where I lived as well. They came round in vans and had cafe's in the town. My mum hated their coffee which was real not Camp but we all loved the ice cream and went to the van with a dish on a Sunday.
One company was local and I believe is still going strong I could only get theirs in my gran village and it was put in a kind of wafer clamshell I can still taste it now.
Mivvis were from Woolworths and a treat for being good when taken shopping in the big town.

I meant to end with "another lovely messy treat".

Another Jubbly fan here. A lovely messy treat.
Each year we used to go on holiday to Cornwall and I remember how much we loved Cornish ice cream. It tasted so rich and delicious.
My grandparents had a corner shop and my grandfather made lollies in rubber moulds. They were animal shapes and he used different colours and flavours for multi coloured lollies. They had a big fridge with an ice box at the top and big blocks of ice were delivered for it. When they retired we were given those rubber moulds and made plaster of paris animals with them.

Jubblies - wonderful. I remember buying one to take to the County Championships Athletics meet. Quite boring if you weren't competing, (schoolday afternoon) but good for laying in the sun, smelling the recently cut grass and drinking the jubbly as it thawed, the long hot walk home smelling the melted tar on the roads. Memories come flooding back on the mention of one word.

Yes, I remember mum wrapping ice cream in layers of newspaper. She also put bottles of milk in a bucket of cold water. My father worked for a firm of agricultural engineers and we had a fridge quite early on, it didn’t have a freezer box but mum loved it.

Yes, I remember us not having a fridge when I was young, ( late 40s early 50s). From the kitchen there were steps into a pantry which was partly below ground, and there was a sort of brick shelf along the wall at the lowest level so therefore coolest.
My brother (10 years older) used to work for Walls ice cream when not at university, and managed to get the van which delivered to nearby shops, to call at our house each week, some time during the day and leave a block of ice cream ( no tubs then) with 'dry ice' wrapped in newspaper. It would then be wrapped in more newspaper and placed on the shelf in the pantry, and would be eaten at teatime!

Alioop - PEAR PICKING PORKIES !! What on earth is that ? It sounds like a cone with a frankfurter sticking out the top of it ! Is it vegetarian ?
Nona4ever - I hope you realise that your parents are/were lucky you didn’t report them to Social Services for that mean trick ?

We used to have a local Italian ice cream maker, D Di Mascio who had vans coming round our city, and we used to shout to Mum can we have a D Di. I grew up thinking all ice cream was called D Di.