White (And Red And Green) Van Man
An ice-cream van parked outside our house this afternoon and its chimes sent the Zedettes into the kind of frenzy you usually see on those Channel Five documentaries about dysfunctional families. They flew from the house clutching their pocket-money and returned a few minutes later with small paper bags bulging with about a dozen dayglow, sugary horrors.
Of course that was my cue to make all sorts of dire predictions a future life of dental pain and obesity, but I let them off with one of those Fatherly head-shaking looks intended to convey weary disappointment while still alllowing them enough personal responsibility to make their own choices. On relfection, it probably came off as indigestion.
Yet I have a nostalgic affection for ice-cream vans. They remind me of my own childhood in Easterhouse. Glasgow's city planners had neglected to build things like shops and workplaces and so a small fleet of those mobile sweet-shops serviced a population the size of Perth. I can still remember the names of those vans and the differences between them. Bert's Van was a long blue monster about the size of a small bus. You stepped up into the back of it and were served at an enclosed counter. Bert sold milk, bread, tea and all the boring groceries your Mother thought provided more nourishment than you own preference of smokey bacon crisps.
There was also a small fish van that was parked permanently a few steets away. It sold white fillets a luminous yellow breadcrumbs to fry them them in. Then there was the Askit van, so-called because there was a logo for those famous headache powders on the side. It sold cream cakes and applie pie.
As children, however, we lived for the half-hourly evening visits of three different ice-cream vans. There was Tommy (a bluey-green van) that was always stocked with the latest TV-advertised sweeties. Who now remembers Stroodles - tiny pieces of chocolate-covered apple in a huge paper bag shaped like an apple?
Tommy stocked them, alongside Aztec bars and Chelsea Whoppers.
The red van was owned by the Marchetti Bros. and was the only van that stocked Garvie's soft drinks. The third van looked exactly like the Marchetti's van except it was white, so we called it The White Marchetti. It sold Solripe drinks.
This was important information when you were a child because you had to know which van would refund the sixpence deposit on your bottles. Too many times I watched a tiny boy struggling to the van with a carrier bag full of clinking empties only to be told "sorry son...we don't take them." It was heartbreaking.
So fast forward to the present day and I'm living in an estate perched high on the outskirts of Inverness. The nearest shop is over a mile away and so the ice-cream van has a captive market.
I'd write more, but can't do that and hold a double-nougat at the same time.
