Ninety-Nine
In the Olden Days when I were nobbut a lass, as they say round here, I wasn't allowed to eat ice-lollies.
The reason for this was that they were supposed to be made of nasty dirty water in the land of Johnny Foreigner, and they would give you typhoid.
There may in fact have been some truth in this, or it may have just been one of my parents' rather over-protective theories, of which there were many.
I was, however, allowed ice-cream - no, I don't quite understand it either. And, after a while, they started making ice-lollies out of ice-cream, and I was allowed those.
The one I really, really coveted was called something like a Heart. It was - you guessed! - heart-shaped, and was vanilla ice-cream on a stick, with stripes of raspberry sauce, covered in milk chocolate.
It cost a shilling, which was at the time about the price of a family car. Oh, all right, perhaps I exaggerate a bit. But a whole shilling! - yes, that's five new pence, or just five pence as we would call them now they're not new at all.
A shilling, in days when an ice-cream cornet cost threepence. You can see why a Heart was a rare luxury - I think I only ever had one about twice.
These days, of course, what with being diabetic an' all, I don't tend to eat sweet things very much. But the other day, in the park, after a walk (that's my excuse) we headed straight for the ice-cream van and bought a 99 each.
I don't remember 99s from my childhood - I think they must have been invented a bit later, along with the internal combustion engine. If you have missed out on their glory, they are a vanilla cornet with a Cadbury's Flake stuck in it, and they are Paradise in ice-cream form.
Here you go. A vision of heaven. Well over twenty times the cost of a Heart.
The reason for this was that they were supposed to be made of nasty dirty water in the land of Johnny Foreigner, and they would give you typhoid.
There may in fact have been some truth in this, or it may have just been one of my parents' rather over-protective theories, of which there were many.
I was, however, allowed ice-cream - no, I don't quite understand it either. And, after a while, they started making ice-lollies out of ice-cream, and I was allowed those.
The one I really, really coveted was called something like a Heart. It was - you guessed! - heart-shaped, and was vanilla ice-cream on a stick, with stripes of raspberry sauce, covered in milk chocolate.
It cost a shilling, which was at the time about the price of a family car. Oh, all right, perhaps I exaggerate a bit. But a whole shilling! - yes, that's five new pence, or just five pence as we would call them now they're not new at all.
A shilling, in days when an ice-cream cornet cost threepence. You can see why a Heart was a rare luxury - I think I only ever had one about twice.
These days, of course, what with being diabetic an' all, I don't tend to eat sweet things very much. But the other day, in the park, after a walk (that's my excuse) we headed straight for the ice-cream van and bought a 99 each.
I don't remember 99s from my childhood - I think they must have been invented a bit later, along with the internal combustion engine. If you have missed out on their glory, they are a vanilla cornet with a Cadbury's Flake stuck in it, and they are Paradise in ice-cream form.
Here you go. A vision of heaven. Well over twenty times the cost of a Heart.
posted by Daphne at 8:31 pm
4 Comments:
You could get at one time if I am not mistaken a Double 99 ! They even used real flakes not those half sized ones seen today.
I can imagine bullets flying out of those chocolate flakes - they're held like Butch Cassidy's guns. What a deprived childhood you had in the cobbled streets of Leeds in the shadow of those smoky mills! No Hearts! What cruel parentage!
Hearts were definitely a big treat in our family. Now they're a football team owned by a mad Lithuanian.
I was always a Zoom man meself.
Eskimo pies were my childhood favorite. They were vanilla ice cream surrounded in chocolate. They came wrapped in tinfoil and you made a horrible mess eating them. Now they come on a stick and...well I just don't like wood in my ice cream.
When I was pregnant for my first son I wanted an Eskimo Pie so very badly. Den went out for them and came back with Oreo's! I cried. Seems he didn't know what an Eskimo Pie was. He went back out, came back with the coveted Eskimo Pie and all was well with the world.
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