photo #9037051

Looking Back: Hyde TOM WIGLEY on Great Norbury Street in the 1930s with his Wall’s Ice Cream tricycle. Pedalling one was hard work, as James Brooke recalls in his book “The Dukinfield I Knew”. “Wall’s of Godley were advertising for smart and capable young men to sell their ice-cream briquettes. Each successful applicant was supplied with a blue and white waterproof peaked hat and a blue and white striped overall, and was allocated a tricycle with solid rubber tyres. “On the front was a large refrigerated box filled to the top with tuppenny (1p) briquettes of ice cream. On the front of the box was a slogan ‘stop me and buy one’ which was quickly converted by the boys to ‘buy me and stop one’. “The tricycle, fully loaded, must have weighed around three to four hundredweight (203kg) and they had to pedal this around the town all day, for they were paid according to the amount they sold. “It amazed me that they managed to walk home from Godley afterwards.” www.tameside.gov.uk/localstudies