This week Memories looks back to a time when Italians from poor mountain villages arrived in the country to seek their fortunes. Some found it, others had to settle for making great ice cream.

ALEX MARTINO wheeled the streets broad and narrow, shouting: "Iceeeeee". That was in summer, pedalling his trike and churning his ice cream, stopping outside schoolgates and calling: "Very, very good for you, ice cream. Tell you mama, it's full of butter, cream and eggs."

In winter, he pushed a hot steel stove into Darlington's market place. On the bottom shelf were roasting chestnuts. On the three shelves above were baking potatoes.

Alex was part of a fascinating social trend that this column has touched upon before. In the 1890s and 1900s, young Italians from poverty-stricken rural villages around Rome came to Britain in search of a new life. They found a niche making and selling ice cream: the "hokey pokey men", from their Italian cry of "oche poco" ("oh, how cheap").

The most famous of all, thanks to Chris' guitar, were the Rea family, but there were plenty of other wellremembered names: Pacitto, Iannarelli, Diplo, De Luca, and, of course, Anty Richards.

Alex Martino's great-niece, Marisa De Giulio, has been in touch from Twickenham in London, researching her family tree. Alex - full name Alessandro - came to Middlesbrough in 1909 as a 17-year-old from the poor hilltop village of Arpino. His sisters, Teresa and Angela, went into domestic service.

He found work with the Greco family, also from Arpino, who were established in the ice cream trade along the Cleveland coast.

Today, the Greco Brothers' wafer and cone factory is still going strong in Middlesbrough.

"The boss taught me how to make the ice-cream, how to mix in the right amounts of cornflour, vanilla, eggs, milk, sugar and flavouring, " Alex told the Evening Despatch newspaper - the Echo's now defunct sister paper - in 1967.

When the First World War broke out, Alex was sent to fight in northern Italy, but returned in 1920 to find Middlesbrough in a slump.

"I took a job as a cafe manager in Scotland, " he said, "but I could not settle in Glasgow - there were too many hills."

He set himself up in the ice-cream trade in Shildon, his trike and his motorbike taking him all over in search of custom: Reeth, Barnard Castle, Appleby, High Force, Middleton-in-Teesdale.

That, though, was a young man's game, so he acquired a pitch in Darlington town centre and a little factory in Clark's Yard, offHgh Row.

The Second World War intervened. The ice cream Italians were registered aliens, even though those of fighting age were sent offto the front. Those who remained at home near the coast were regarded as a threat and were rounded up in 1940.

About 1,500 of them were shipped offto Canada aboard the Arandora Star.

On July 2, 1940, it was torpedoed offthe Irish coast by a German U-boat. Partly due to over-crowding and lack of lifeboats, 800 lives were lost - 13 from Teesside including two Reas and two Grecos.

Living a little inland in Darlington, Alex wasn't interned until 1941 when he was sent to a camp on the Isle of Wight. "A lthough there was a barbed wire fence and guards, things were not too bad because the guards were very helpful, " he said.

After the war, he laboured for seven years at Summersons' Foundries until rationing ended and he could return to his rounds, crying "Iceeeee".

He retired in 1965 and died in 1973, and his great-niece Marisa would love to hear any memories from the golden days of the Italian ice-cream men.