P is for Pendelton's

Brian Berke keeps turning up little gems and then sending me them to share with you! This is lovely as it seems to solve the question mark over why I ended up with a Made In England stick on a Buried Treasure figure, although Brian stresses his aren't so marked - original post with comments and links.

In the age of the Solero or Magnum, it's easy to forget that once upon a time, iced-lollies came on sticks, while iced-cream came - soft - in a cornet or harder between two sheets of semi-edible card-foam-biscuit (risibly called wafers!) or coated in a layer of chocolate to prevent drippage, but never the twain [confectionary formats] should meet!

To put ice cream on a stick was innovative enough, to make the stick out of that new-fangled plastic, and put decorative figures on the end, hidden in the confectionary was visionary! Why did these not pass the test of time, we've been back to wooden sticks only since the mid-1970's? And they phased the two-part (one hidden) joke out, on wooden-sticks, so long ago I can't remember when I last had one?

Who remembers four-figure phone-numbers? Our first was 'Heckfield 234', and you always answered as that so the caller would know they'd got the right number, due to the high number of crossed-lines and the fact that there were hundreds of 234's up and down the country!

Now there's not much on the Internet, but I know whole books have been written about the Ice Cream Wars of the 1950's, '60's and '70's, gangs would chase each other off sites, ice cream vans were burned, tipped-over with the operator inside, scoop-tubs spoiled with dog-mess or spirits, entire depots were torched, people were beaten-up and threatened, it all got quite nasty, as local crime syndicates engaged in 'turf wars' - chasing a profit motive, or using the vans to ahem . . .sell other consumables! It culminated in the 1980's with real death in Glasgow.

Even today; there was a piece on Radio 4 about a week ago about a monosyllabic, semi-racist (it seemed to me), avowed Brexiteer (no permit) muscling in on a Polish chap with a council permit to trade.

While all that was going on, the big-boys; Walls and Lyons Maid, were just buying-up all the little operators - like Pendelton's - and the van-franchise that went with each purchase. That explains the disappearance of Pendleton's, but not of the idea, or the moulds? Someone might still have them, the US blog has tracked down two American ones!

I'm sure, that despite the odd subjects of the prizes, especially by today's standards of Pokemon, Star Wars and Ben-10, these would still prove popular. Even supposedly sophisticated 'modern' kids still like their bucket-and-spade on the beach, still enjoy their Christmas cracker and its idiot novelty, still make camps in the woods . . .  while gum-ball machines are commoner now, in their serried-banks 'down the precinct' than they were in my day, when getting one in the village was viewed akin to becoming a small town over-night!

Brian says he bought these in London in 1973 - Bring back Pendleton's Ice Cream on a Stick!, that's what I say!