Box-type Delivery Tricycle

Box-type delivery tricycle, 1938. Wall & Son Ltd first started to use these to sell ice-cream in 1922. Known as Walls ‘Stop me and buy one’ tricycles, they soon became a familiar sight on Britain’s roads between the wars with over 10,000 in use in 1939. During the Second World War many were destroyed for metal but some, including this example, were ‘called up’ for service. Fitted with radios, compasses and metronomes they were used to train fighter direction officers at a base in Pembrokshire. During the war a limited amount of ice-cream was produced and distributed to severely bombed areas, but due to rationing it was not on sale again until the late 1940s. The last tricycle known to sell Walls ice-cream was ridden by Gordon Knipe in Gloucester who retired in 1974.