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The ice cream truck's surprising history
From crime panics to TikTok, summer's favorite vehicle has driven a bumpy road.
An unspoken secret between us, given that Mum had dinner waiting on the table when we arrived, and would have been appalled to know that a mere seven minutes earlier, we were driving along the seafront, car top down, the salty air whipping my long hair into the ice cream and sticky sauce. In 2013, guidelines from the UK’s Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs relaxed a bit, permitting jingles in 12-second bursts, rather than the previous four, but only once every two minutes, at 80 decibels or less, between the hours of 12 and 7 p.m., and not in the vicinity of schools, hospitals, places of worship, or in sight of another van. The odds can feel stacked against the old-school icey men, with legislation that limits their movement, environmental and nutritional campaigners who demand more and more restrictions, rising pitch rents, the price of vans, the difference, even, in the way children play outside.
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