HE was joined in business by his sons, Arthur and Billy, and they found a niche building ice-cream vans.

Around the time of the Second World War, an ice cream vendor would purchase a chassis, engine and gearbox from a manufacturer like Bedford and take it to a coachworks – like Raines – to turn it into a van.

Raines closed in 2001 but Andrew, grandson of the founder, has a fine collection of photographs which tell of ice-cream vans through the ages… 1850s: Ice-cream – probably invented by the ancient Chinese and reputedly brought to this country as “frozen snow” by Charles I in the 17th Century – begins to become common, sold from handcarts or horsedrawn carts 1890s: The first wave of Italian immigrants brings the mysterious and exotic art of continental ice-cream making to Britain. By the 1920s, every town in the North-East has at least one Italian family making the chilly treat. Initially, ice-cream was served as a slab on waxy paper, then in a biscuit cornet or in a reusable glass bowl known as a “penny lick”. The penny lick was outlawed in 1926 due to hygiene concerns about the number of tongues which licked it 1923: Walls bought the first of 50 pedal-powered tricycles which had the slogan “stop me and buy one” on them. The first motorised ice-cream vans, like Domenico’s, began to appear 1950s: The heyday of the icecream van. Freezer technology had advanced so that it fitted easily in the vans – rather than great lumps of melting ice packed around the product.

However, freezers were still too expensive for the average family. Therefore, the icecream had to travel to them Late 1950s: The ice-cream world was revolutionised by the advent in America of soft ice-cream, known as Mister Softee. It quickly spread to this country, with Gateshead being an early adopter Early 1960s: Lyons Maid owned the Mister Softee name and Walls responded with Mr Whippy. An ice-cream van cost £3,200 new. Margaret Thatcher did the trade an enormous benefit when she was one of the scientists who invented a process that doubled the amount of air inside a Mr Whippy ice cream. At a stroke, ice-cream production costs fell Late 1960s: Increasingly, though, ice-cream vans were no longer locally made on a bought-in chassis, and Raines moved onto accident repairs.