John Warner Author

Recently I read about another so called Heatwave which is due to hit the UK sometime soon, in some papers it is said to last thirty days. Other’s report that it will be the `Ice Cream` season all over again. Judging by previous Heatwaves, it will probably be three days of extreme heat followed by torrential rain and floods. But what interested me was my favorite treat: Ice Cream.
I love ice cream, and thankfully it’s ice cream season most of the year here in Cyprus especially here in Paphos. It is the norm on any given night for families to say: “lets go for a walk down the harbor for an Ice Cream” it quietens the kids, gets the parents out, resulting in the harbor walk becoming alive and the ice cream parlours becoming extra busy and the parents pockets getting lighter as a result.
Flavours now are very exotic: Pomegranate, Caramel and Cheesecake, Yoghurt and Black Cherry, Lemon and Ginger, the list is endless, all lined up making it difficult to choose, when my niece visited recently she said she would try them all choosing a different one each night, it never happened.
As a youngster we had simple cornets with a scoop of really frozen ice cream, or wafers wrapped in tissue paper, lollipop’s were also a treat. We bought from the local van (Erics) that used to come around the street ringing his hand bell out of the van window, he would lift the lid of the large freezer in the back of the van and scoop out the solid ice cream into a cornet or he would expertly shape a wafer. He would start coming from about April and my mum used to complain saying: “it’s far too early for ice cream he should be here in June”. Then it was a treat, now, along with many other things, it’s an everyday occurrence.
In the late fifties, Mr Whippy became the familiar ice cream vans to roam the streets and changed forever the way of ice cream vending in Britain. These large pink and cream vans sold the swirly soft whippy ice cream, they came with Cadbury Flakes stuck in the top or you could have Raspberry or Chocolate syrup piped around the ice cream with a sprinkling of grated nuts, and a great array of Lollipops were also on sale.
I was interested to learn that a certain Dominic Facchino started Mr Whippy in England. From Italian descent and born in England, Mr Facchino visited the US in 1958 and saw the “Mr Softee” ice cream truck franchise in operation, his family background being in ice cream he knew it would be a success in Britain, but was sadly denied the UK franchise for `Mr Softee`.
Undeterred, he returned and set up his own business and in 1958 with a pilot of 6 vans in Birmingham Mr Whippy was born. Based on the Commer chassis and coach built by Smiths Karrier, the bright Pink and Cream vans soon became a familiar sight on our streets. Thanks to successful franchising,by 1961 there were 150 Mr Whippy vans on our streets with the familiar `Greensleeves Chimes. In 1966 Walls Ice Cream acquired the ownership of Mr Whippy and it remains the same today. Along with the Blue and White Mr Softee, these bright vans with their varying jingles became the norm in England throughout the sixties and seventies, there are many variations on the theme today, but both these ` Whippy and Softee` vans were pioneers of their day.
Thank you for reading this blog…JW
John Warner is a Pandora Family Member and Author of The Tales of Padistan Bear.