Ice cream and sweets 1950s style

Editorial Department • Published 11 Feb 2010 09:44 0 Comments

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Dear Sir, - Reading last week's feature on the Derby café, I was nostalgically reminded of the delicious delights of real ice cream.

In the 1950s and early 60s, long before the advent of Magnums and Cornettos, it was a real and quite rare treat to get an ice cream. Several shops in the town served lovely ice cream, some of it homemade. Mr Dick Nawn in East Bridge Street, in what is now Paragon cleaners, served a strange looking and tasting ice cream in his café and shop. It somehow looked, and indeed even tasted like, creamy yellow semolina. Yet, en route home from school, if we were lucky enough to have thrupence, we queued up to savour a cone. Mr Nawn was a very dapper man with a moustache and a very inscrutable expression. One was never entirely sure if he welcomed the custom of a gaggle of giggling schoolgirls as his carefully clipped moustache seemed to twitch with irritation.

Further up the street was the Melvin House, presided over by the two Misses Pope, Bridie and Kathleen. They served lovely cones, topped with a dash of raspberry flavouring. As Bernie Boylan mentioned the Derby cafe was renowned for its ice cream, served at the counter in cones, or if one was feeling flush and perhaps hoping to impress, in one of the booths. The ice cream then was served in boat shaped glass dishes topped with flavouring or maybe even chocolate flake and tinned fruit. Very exotic in 1950s Enniskillen!

In Belmore Street the lovely, brown eyed, cheerful Mrs Shaw sitting behind her counter, served generous wafers, sometimes called sliders, of Dobson's ice cream. If she knew you, or, if it was a particularly hot day she very generously gave you an extra large serving.

We lived then at the Forthill and we were often sent down to Belmore Street by the various mothers who used to spend their afternoons in the Park knitting and chatting whilst their children played on the swings or in their home made dens round the back of the Forthill. Many mini wars or cowboy raids were played out there by opposing gangs. Usually the mothers would give you a tip of a penny or two for the errand. This was spent in the rather severe Mr Sweeny's sweetshop, where Hughes chemist is now. One could get four Black Jacks or four Fruit Salads for a penny. Further along the street, in Armstrong's grocery shop, one, if you could afford it, or, if we clubbed together could get a bar of McGowan's toffee for thrupence, or, even better a bar of chocolate covered toffee for four old pence.

Happy, simple days indeed.

Yours faithfully,

Patricia Donnelly

10 Scaffog Park, Enniskillen.

This letter appeared in Impartial Reporter 11 Feb 10

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