Since retiring three years ago the bride and I have been developing a whole new set of addictions. Addiction to sport, Sky, keeping an eye on the neighbours, gardening, chocolate, and last, but by no means least – ice cream.
With the onset of warm weather last summer westarted trying the odd Memphis Meltdown or Magnum.
We started off slowly, maybe buying once a week but, with time and our bodies slowly developing tolerance, we have increased this to one each per day.
With the cold weather here we were seeking to withdraw from this habit.
This is not going well at this stage and spring is nearly here so we may have to wait until next winter. Either that or I will be cooking more puddings to put ice cream on.
Rob Rattenbury
I was sitting in the Lay Z Boy yesterday thinking about this and then began thinking about all the ice cream brands that were around when we were kids.
If you remember, every dairy had its own ice cream brand.
Some I recall were Roscoes, Clarkes, Peter Pan, Adams Bruce (They were bloody cold and hard on the teeth), Walls, Streets, Tip Top and lastly – Gaytime – probably would not be allowed nowadays but back then, as you older folk will recall, gay meant happy.
We used to get ice cream in cones or small tubs with a wooden spoon but in the late 60s ice cream sundaes and trumpets began appearing, a whole new level of sophistication in fine dining for the average kid was upon us.
What about a shilling worth of mixed lollies?
A white paper bag would be filled by the dairy owner with a selection of sweets from under the glass counter, the bag being filled to the brim with about half a pound of aniseed balls, wine gums, jelly beans, milk bottles, caramel chews, jet planes, smokers, green things we had to suck, little marshmallow things of different colours, the list was endless.
Back then the only takeaways we had were fish and chips or meat pies.
Some of my fondest memories are of walking home from the baths on a hot summer's day wearing only my togs and a T-shirt, barefoot, a towel around my neck, eating fish and chips, soaked with vinegar and salt, out of a wrapped newspaper with the end pulled out so one could get one's mitt in.
The only takeaways we had were fish and chips or meat pies. / Getty Images
My mates trying at the same time to nick the chips as either they had finished theirs or had no money.
We always shared our chips as kids and I knew that the next day I would be trying to get theirs as well.
The fish and chip shop was opposite the baths and did a roaring trade with hungry kids who had just spent hours running, diving, jumping, swimming, drowning and dunking each other in our huge Olympic-sized swimming pool. We did not have wallets or pockets, we used to tie our money into the corner of our towels and keep a wary eye on it.
Going to the pictures was a weekly event, Saturday matinee sessions at 2pm.
Lining up in a long queue to get in, 1/6 upstairs (15c) or 1/3 downstairs (12c). You could sit in the front three rows for 9d (8c) but you were looking upwards for the show.
This meant that you also had more money for lollies so it was usually worth it.
Running home afterwards pretending you were John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, a child's imagination is a wonderful thing to behold.
Then I began thinking about the different brands of lemonade and soft drink we could get - Schweppes, Thomson Lewis, Foxton Fizz, Tartan Innes to name some.
The best thing about this, if you took the bottle back after drinking the contents, the dairy-owner would give you threepence or sixpence, depending on the bottle size.
My mates and I came up with a cunning plan one fine summer holiday when we were about 8 or 9.
Why buy the lemonade, why not just go around the back of our local dairy in Naenae, pick up a few empty lemonade bottles from the dairy-owner's stack waiting for the truck and take them in again and sell them to the dairy-owner.
This worked fine for a while but all came down around our ears one day when he came out the back just as we were "lifting" the bottles.
Oh dear, I could not sit down for a few days after the old man found out. Obviously the dairy owner knew all our names and knew our parents. The owner then installed a shed to put the empties in and locked this.
Simple times but fun times. The sun was always shining.
