Vintage ~ Handmade ~ Homes ~ Gardens

Friday 29 July 2011

We all scream for ice cream

Just the other day on a warm summer evening I heard a familiar sound, one that I hadn't heard for a few years. It was the sound of an ice cream van playing its tinkly tune. Is there a sound that is more evocative of a British summer?

The hey day for ice cream vans was in the 1950s when I was a little girl. The van would come at the same time each day and you could hear the whining of children nagging their parents for an ice cream. My family were hard up so it was a rare treat for me to stand in the queue, with some pennies sweating in my hand, salivating at the prospect of  a Mr Whippy ice cream with a swirl of raspberry topping.










So it's heart warming to see that ice cream vans are once again having a moment. Nostalgia for a gentler time has born a revival of vintage ice cream vans













In the land of ice and snow

Up among the Eskimo

There's a college known as Oogie-wawa.

You should hear those college boys

Gee, they make an awful noise

When they sing their Eskimo tra la la.

They've got a leader, big cheer leader, oh what a guy!

He's got a frozen face just like an Eskimo Pie.

When he says, "Come on, let's go!"

Though it's forty-five below

Listen what those Eskimo all holler:

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!


9 comments:

  1. i am in love with these. for my day job i manage an ice cream parlour...we pasturise milk from the local dairy farm and make it all ourselves. I would die for an ice cream van like these!

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  2. Ciao,simpatico il tuo blog,bei paesaggi,tanto vintage!Divento tua follwer,ciao Rosetta

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  3. Oooh an ice cream parlour Claire! What a super job.

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  4. Just took a look again at Daddy My Daddy post. Enjoyed it the first time I read it too. Love your photos and all the great peeks you are sharing. Almost like visiting. Thanks for checking out my blog and leaving a comment today.

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  5. just saw your Ice Cream Van post on someone's sidebar and had to come over and read as it brought back childhood memories for me too
    xx

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  6. Love ice cream, my favorite is 'Dame Blanche', (vanilla ice cream with chocolate).
    Here a van comes every day in the evening during Summer time.
    Lovely photos, Louise !
    Hugs,
    Sylvia

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  7. Dame Blanche - great name for an ice cream isn't it?

    So glad it brought back memories. I think I may do a post on pop vans, another summer childhood memory.

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  8. just caught up on all your up north posts....hardly grim is it as you say, i love the north having spent all my summers up there as a kid with my gran. love the ice cream post too, always takes me way back when i hear those tunes.

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  9. Hi Louise, Thanks so much for your visit and sweet comment. I loved this about the ice cream vans. Ohhhh those Mr. whippy’s ...with a cadbury flake...yes please!

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