A goodbye to Summer 2012, partly because it feels colder over here in The Netherlands this week, but mainly so that I can use a lovely pick of John Shaw as Regan in The Sweeney, waiting patiently for his 99 at the Tonibell Van.
Ah, Tonibell Van. How I miss your tinkly twinkly lament of ‘Greensleeves’, and your side window festooned with stickers displaying your wares.
While we are at it, lets post up a nice Walls advert from superior Girls comic ‘Misty’, from back in the 70s;
and for those of us who spent a lot of time getting excited about ice cream and lollies in the mid to late 70s, early 80s, take a look at these;
Please note that all of the images (apart from John Thaw at the Tonibell Van) are courtesy of the following thread – start at page 1 and work your way through, its a treat for ice cream nostalgists;
There were many, many types of lolly in the 70’s and 80’s, the market fuelled by the regular patrols of Ice Cream Vans throughout the Spring, Summer and Autumn of my childhood. In order to get a piece of the action, the ice cream makers came up with all sorts of branding and commercial tie-ins to get the kids to hand over their parents pennies. As I write this, I remember an Action Man tie-in where our ‘Mr Whippy’ van used to give a few of these cigarette type cards with Action Man in various ‘action’ scenarios. Anyone remember? If you do, please get back to me! I digress. One popular type of branding was combining ice cream with Horror characters and Monsters. I have, in the past, mentioned the use of Count Dracula in selling ice cream (see here and here). Now, I present the majesty of KING KONG;
Big in the mid 1970s, and partly helped by the remake of the classic film, this fantastic lolly was – what else? – a milky banana treat, and one of my favourites. The following advert gives you some indication of the Walls roster of lollies around the time of King Kongs existence;
The lolly wrapper and advert come courtesy of the marvellous ‘doyouremember’ forums (see links below for the sources of these wonderful images). The advert itself is taken from TV Comic. Here are the links – it’s a great site, with lots of brilliant images and useful recollections….
TV Comic…..I have a very happy memory of being at Primary School in the 1970s and purchasing a pile of TV Comic at a School Jumble Sale. For 10p I acquired what felt like hundreds of issues. I cannot remember how I got them home, but I know they gave me hours and hours and pleasure. This comic did exactly as its title suggested – it was a comic full of comic strips based on TV shows. Like the Pink Panther. I remember the Pink Panther on the cover of some of the comics vividly. I also acquired a load of summer specials in that pile. I was in a state of comic ecstasy and began my life long love of comics, as I graduated, through the years onto Action, Bullet, Captain Britain, Mighty World of Marvel and 2000AD.
On sports day at Longwood Primary School, one of the treats, alongside the fact there were no lessons on that day, was the arrival of the Ice Cream van. Either a blue & white or a yellow & white affair, with the Lyons Maid or Walls logo emblazoned on the back and sides and the various wares advertised with stickers on the serving windows. This symbol of our after school life, at school, was a very pleasant juxtaposition. Whats with the reminiscing? I’m coming to it.
Walls and Lyons Maid were the Lords of Lollies in the Seventies – Funny Face, Funny Feet, Bionic Lolly, Choc-a-bloc, Lord Toffingham, Haunted House, Pineapple Mivvi or, if your folks were particularly skint, a Lemonade Sparkle or Mini-Milk ….
Back to the point! The reason for my reverie is that 2 wonderful blogsites have reawakened my childhood memories of one of the best ice lollies I have tasted, and reminded me of the ice cream vans at sports day. This particular lolly was the one I always asked for after the egg and spoon race – it was called ‘Count Draculas Deadly Secret’, and not only did it have an amazing name, it also had a ‘deadly secret’ – that secret was the blood red jelly centre once you had eaten through the black lolly and white ice cream – aaagggghhhhhhhh!
Here is one of the press adverts, usually seen in comics of the time (around the mid 70’s) courtesy of both the the cobwebbed room and lewstringer.blogspot;
not only, but also……Lew Stringers blog manages to drag a big carrier bag of junk food and drink related advertising goodness back to his site – there’s Cresta (which was up against Corona in a low budget British pepsi vs coke war) amongst other stuff. Does anyone else remember the pop man? He used to deliver Corona pop and you got ‘busy with the fizzy’ stickers and pop bottles in crates…..Anyway, Lew Stringers site is amazing – his blog is a real treat. Here’s the post – but the site is just great in general;
If you look here there’s an old advert for Anglo Bubbly bubble gum from waaaay back.
A request – Can anyone provide me with a link or a picture of a Lord Toffingham lolly wrapper? I remember it being a brown wrapper with a ‘Lord Snooty’ type illustration of a young man wearing a monocle. I would love to see one of those….
By the way, I found this on youtube – did you pass the Corona fizzical???
those we left behind 
