Gypsy Creams
The Complete Sweet
Woman's Own / 20th June 1969
Of course, ice cream with various syrups and toppings are commonplace nowadays, but clearly it wasn’t until the late ’60s that ice cream ‘ripples’ became common. This advert, from Lyons Maid, now part of the Walls behemoth, adopts quite a patronising tone, but it’s tough not to sound like that when you’re instructing the nation’s housewives that they don’t need to add anything to the product. Although I don’t think a glace cherry is going to spoil this young boy’s Strawberry Ripple, I can see their point that old habits die hard, and what brightens up plain ice cream would crowd a ‘complete sweet’. I wonder when that name fell out of use? In any case, this does provide some amusing context to the activities of Sunshine Desserts in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, published some six years later.
Tags: blatant sexism, food, ice cream, kids, Lyons Maid, motherhood, retail, social history
10 Comments
Londis on 26 September 2009 @ 11am
The kid looks a tad bit peeved she’s even putting the glace cherry there.
I perceived that she was snatching it away. “No fresh fruit with your complete sweet!” Not that a glace cherry is fresh fruit either, but the sentiment of this advert makes me feel quite ill.
Tanya Jones on 26 September 2009 @ 12pm
Yeah, it’s not very well phrased. I can imagine the company wanting to show off with the new ‘syrup included’ technology, but there must have been a better way of putting it across!
Estelle on 27 September 2009 @ 8pm
This led me here – http://www.kzwp.com/lyons/group2.htm.
You’re right, Tanya, Neapolitan Gaiety was indeed just neapolitan ice cream.
“spoonful after spoonful of syrup” makes me feel a bit bleh.
Von Paz on 1 July 2010 @ 6pm
You don’t really get peach ice cream any more do you?
Lyons Maid is owned by Nestle, Walls is owned by Unilever. You don’t see them together in the same kiosk generally.
Personally, with my Mum being a mid-wife, I NEVER eat Lyons Maid.
Morgy on 24 September 2009 @ 9am
The kid looks a tad bit peeved she’s even putting the glace cherry there. Either that or he’s about to puke because he’s eaten so much of the stuff and is sick of it.
I like the names of the other complete sweet’s available to try.