When the lannarelli family came to England in 1895, it began a long tradition of ice cream making in Darlington. But, as Chris Lloyd discovers, there is so much more to this family's story.

This is the story of how an Italian shepherd boy from the hills above Naples has his name written in mosaic in a Darlington shop doorway.

It is a story of family betrayals, of tragic deaths, of a coke-burning chestnut oven and, above all, of ice cream.

It begins around 1895 when Guiseppe Iannarelli decided he wanted a better, more lucrative, life for himself and his new wife than the one on offer minding sheep above the village of Attina, near Naples.

So he sailed for Plymouth. But Plymouth was not all it was made out to be. Quickly, he and his wife, neither of whom spoke English, became homesick, and when she fell pregnant, they returned home for the birth.

Sadly, their first two boys died in infancy, but when they began a second English adventure in 1902, they had two very young children with them: Alberto and Beatrice.

This second adventure took them north, to Darlington, where they had a letter of introduction to the Rocco Rea family - a family which had already escaped the grind of poverty of Italy and started up an ice cream business in Harrowgate Hill (it seems highly probable that Harrowgate Hill Reas were related to the Redcar Reas, from whom sprang the legendary guitarist Chris Rea).

Guiseppe's first line of businesses were the coke-burning chestnut oven which he wheeled into Darlington Market Place every day during the winter, and his stand in North Lodge Park where he sold ice cream every day during the summer.

In 1910, having learned the tricks of the ice cream trade from the Reas, Guiseppe opened his own caf (he described himself as "a master confectioner") in Skinnergate - where the Three Squares caf is today.

His family kept growing, both with his own children and the cousins who popped over from Italy in search of a new life.

In 1918, a double tragedy struck: his eldest daughter Beatrice and cousin Emilia both died of the Spanish flu as an epidemic swept across Europe at the end of the war.

It is said that both girls were about to get married, and that both are buried in West Cemetery in their wedding dresses.

Then came a family fall-out. Guiseppe's plan was to work hard in Darlington and then retire with his family back to Italy.

But his oldest son Alberto had fallen for Norah Jardine, a Darlington lass more than ten years his junior. Alberto and Norah married, and father and son never spoke again.

In fact, the newly-weds were practically cast adrift - but Alberto's brothers rallied round.

They found Guiseppe's old coke-burning chestnut oven, abandoned out of the back of the Skinnergate shop for at least a decade, and wheeled it down to Alberto.

He repaired it, fired it up, and most nights from teatime to 11pm he could be found in the Market Place selling chestnuts and salted potatoes to the drinkers.

Alberto also began building a fleet - seven or eight strong - of wooden ice cream handbarrows, which were painted white with red handles.

He designed them to contain a two-gallon ice cream freezer - a double-walled metal container packed with ice - with one compartment for wafers and cornets, and another for a washing system and scoop.

He also set up his own ice cream factory in Abbott's Yard, off Bondgate, where he made his ice cream at the crack of dawn.

Then, his barrow boys arrived and strolled the streets selling, stopping only temporarily - otherwise the police would take an interest in their illegally permanent stands.

Alberto, though, had been weakened by the Spanish flu epidemic that had accounted for his sister, and he died aged 38 in 1935 while waiting for heart surgery at Darlington Memorial.

His daughter Rosa, of Neasham, has kindly lent Echo Memories the family photograph album.

His wife, Norah, kept the business going for a year before selling it to Alberto's younger brother, Giovanni.

It was this Johnny Iannarelli who had an ice cream stand just inside South Park until the 1960s.

The Iannarelli family tree is nothing if not extremely complicated.

About the time of Alberto's death, Giuseppe's son Antonio returned from Manchester, where he had been learning a trade in an Italian terracotta factory.

To show off his new skills, he spelled out the family name in a black-and-white mosaic on the floor of the entrance into the Skinnergate shop - a mosaic that is still there.

Antonio - who had been born in Skinnergate in 1904 - then moved to Australia, where he developed a successful mosaic business.

When Antonio died in Alice Springs in 1960, a plaque was erected in his honour.

With poor Alberto dying young, Antonio moving to Australia and Giovanni taking over the handbarrow trade, the patriach of the family, Guiseppe turned to his youngest two children, Anna Eloisa and Michael, to run the Skinnergate caf.

Anna had a head for figures. She did all the paperwork for the shop, and presented the completed documents to her father for his signature.

One day, she slipped a document giving her permission to marry into the pile of papers.

Without reading it, Guiseppe signed, and Annie rushed off with her intended, Fred Smith, to a registry office.

Guiseppe felt betrayed, but he had to take Anna back because she was the business brains of the Skinnergate shop.

Guiseppe died during the Second World War when times were tough for Italians in England - it was recently revealed that a Chester-le-Street ice cream maker had been secretly marked down as a threat to national security because no one liked him and he looked a little like Mussolini.

One of the Iannarelli's cousins - Peter, who drove around south Durham villages on a motorbike selling ice cream from his sidecar - was taken from Darlington and interned in Wales, and Anna decided that it was too dangerous for the Skinnergate shop to bear her family name in large letters over its door.

And so she changed it to her married name, AE Smith.

It remained as such until she and Fred retired in the 1950s, and the name changed once more - although "Iannarelli" is still indelibly written in the mosaic on the shop floor.

A COUPLE of generations back, Darlington and the surrounding district was awash with Italian ice cream makers.

As well as the Iannarellis and the Harrowgate Hill Reas, there was Anty Richards, or Angelo Rissetto, whose Northgate caf still bears his name and whose story was told here a month or so ago.

Then there were the Di Paulo family (known locally as "Diplo") who had a sweet shop and caf in Post House Wynd.

They had a connection with the Di Luca family, who had an ice cream factory next to Alberto Iannarrelli's in Abbott's Yard and a stand near the Dolphin pub in the Market Place.

Later, the Di Lucas had a coffee stand beside the Covered Market.

There was also an Italian lady known as Mrs Bartino who had a coffee stand near St Cuthbert's Church.

Apparently, her real name was Mrs Bartinelli, but the locals thought this sounded like "the bastard Nelly", so she altered her name.

Any information or memories of any of them or their stands is most welcome at the address below.

STILL on a confectionery theme, Jean Christian, of Darlington, remembers the "chocolate train" which pulled up in a siding at Bank Top station every year during the 1930s.

It sounds like a child's heaven, as it was a shop which contained every brand of chocolate imagineable.

It seems to have toured all the stations in the area, probably around Christmas.

Any memories on this are also most welcome.

Published: ??/??/2004

Echo Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 1NF, e-mail chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk or telephone (01325) 505062.