D Di Mascio

Hi Tricia I think that I can just about remember when they were 3d. Or a threepenny-bit'! (Threpny). Mind you, maybe they were not large.

Just to confirm where there were operating, here's an ad from 1957

I think the premises in King William Street was more a cafe than anything else, I worked for a firm in Albert Street and we walked round every morning for breakfast, the sausage batches were scrummy. The shop was called D Di's but maybe it wasn't the ice cream company.

Not sure I follow that - the address appears in the ice cream company's ad!

I only lived a few minutes walk from D.Di in King William Street and I can't remember the shop selling anything other than ice cream.

Tricia. On the extreme right you can just about make out D.Di, this is the shop where we got our batches - is this the shop you had in mind?

Hi NormK Yes, that's the D Di parlour I remember. Perhaps when you went there it was a much later date than when I did. When I used to go with Mayjan for a glass of ice cream, with juice and a wafer biscuit, it would probably have been in the early 50s. A small glass was 4d and a large glass 6d. Maybe Mayjan (or scrutiny) can remember when they started to sell food.

Hi Tricia and Norm K I can't recall D Di ever selling anything but ice cream and delicious it was too. I expect in later years it maybe changed hands and they started selling batches. I loved sitting in the ice cream parlour with one of the fancy glass dishes full of ice cream, with the red sauce on top. My dad also occasionally used to pick us kids a cornet up, when he left the Howitzers Club on a Saturday lunchtime. In the summer it would be running all down his fingers by the time he got home to Coronation Road.

It was a rare treat for me to go in there. After 1959 my friends changed because of going to "Freddies", so did my route. For some reason I hardly ever used King William St. after that date but that was when I found the "Berdot" and the "Cum-Back" cafe.

Thanks Tricia, it was opposite Freehold St on Harnall Lane East. 1/1d for pie, peas and chips, 7d for two homemade scones and a cup of tea. I think the couple who owned it was called Baker. Got on with them well, considering I was a school kid, nice couple. The meal was dearer for adults but the portion the same, 1/10d if I remember correctly. Went there instead of school meals, only a 1d dearer.

In the early sixties, I think D Di's was just an ice cream shop but I was very young then. Obviously I was more interested in ice cream at that point than pretty much any other food. I will talk to my mother later today and see if she remembers when it might have changed.

Just talked to my mother, who came to Hillfields as a young married woman in 1948 and left in the early 90s. She doesn't remember D Di's as ever selling anything like sausage batches either, although they did sell lemonade and chocolate. Both of us are open to being proved wrong, though!