This photo dates from the late 1950s and is taken in Hope Cove.
An Austin ice cream van delivering Eldorado ice cream has gone into the Harbour, The rescue crane has started its work, no doubt encouraged, or otherwise, by helpful comments made by the self-professed experts standing nearby.
The writer remembers Eldorado ice cream which seemed at the time to have the monopoly at cinemas. It was taken over by Lyons Maid and disappeared from view.
Did the ice cream remaining in the van after its submersion reappear as salted caramel, one wonders?
The vessel Zippa moored alongside was a canal steam barge which operated on the Sharpness Ship Canal. It appeared at Weymouth in the late 1950s with modernistic streamlined upperworks. The living spaces were wallpapered which caused amusement and she was fitted with a domestic toilet and bath, which might have been satisfactory on a canal, but would have caused all sorts of interesting problems when she put to sea.
