LANNIE has been the name synonymous with ice-cream in the Worcester area for the past century - and to many, this family brand has always been a lick above the rest!

The popular local ice-cream dynasty was founded about 100 years ago by Italian, Francesco Lanni (the "e" was added later).

He left Cassino, near Naples, in the 1880s or 1890s to seek a new life in England, but he didn't go straight into the Italian speciality of ice-cream making, choosing first to try his hand at busking.

He toured the streets of the Black Country with a barrel organ... and it was while making his living in this way that he met and married Sarah Jane Morgan.

They decided to make their home in Worcester, living first in Pheasant Street, but later moving to what was to become the base of Lannie's ice-cream empire for many years - No.1 Severn Terrace, the corner building alongside the Pitchcroft car park entrance, now Ostlers Restaurant.

Francesco and Sarah Jane Lannie had eight children - five sons and three daughters - but, sadly, two of the girls, Mary and Beatrice, died of TB in their teens.

Four of the Lannie boys - Michael, Christopher, Nicholas and Thomas - and the surviving daughter, Angelina, helped their father in the ice-cream business. Son Joseph chose a different path.

Francesco himself went out almost daily on his rounds, selling ice-cream from his colourful cart, pulled by his trusty white pony, Bob.

When I interviewed 98 years-old Ted Clissold of Mortlake Avenue, Worcester, for a Memory Lane feature on his boyhood in the Whittington area, he recalled: "As youngsters, we looked forward to seeing Mr Lannie's ice- cream pony and trap with its colourful red and white striped canopy.

"It would pass through our hamlet on its way to Pershore. If Mr Lannie had not sold all his ice-cream and had some left over, he would stop on the way back, scrape round the containers and put ice-cream into cups for a ha'penny each."

Francesco Lannie's sister, Bascalina also left Italy and settled in Chestnut Street, Worcester, with her Italian husband, whose surname was Cascarino. She produced her own ice-cream which she sold for several years from a bright red and yellow barrow outside the Scala Cinema.

I now take up the story of the Lannie dynasty through the recollections of Mrs Mary Flynn of Pearmain Close, Worcester, the granddaughter of Francesco Lannie and daughter of Nicholas Lannie.

She was born and brought up at 1 Severn Terrace and remembers her grandfather as "a lovely man and a real gentleman, though you were left in no doubt that he was boss. Surprisingly, he didn't have much of an Italian accent and most people in Worcester knew him as Frank.

"All the large quantities of milk for the ice-cream was boiled in the scullery at 1 Severn Terrace and then poured into stainless steel containers in the outbuildings where the mixture was worked into a thick consistency.

"My father and I regularly walked up to the Ice Works in Bromyard Road, with a porter's trolley to collect a big block of ice. This would be covered with a piece of sacking but usually melted a bit on out return trek. Back at Severn Terrace, the block of ice would be broken up with picks and all the pieces placed round the ice-cream churns.

"Strict hygiene was observed at all times because officials came round regularly making the most stringent of checks."

Mrs Flynn says the Lannie family "worked really hard," most of them getting up at 4 am to help with the ice-cream making and to prepare to go out on rounds with their barrows or carts.

"I would often go with my father early morning to collect Grandad Lannie's pony Bob from its stables in Lion Walk, off Sansome Walk. When we got Bob back to Severn Terrace, aunt Angelina would thoroughly wash him down and plait his mane so that he always looked immaculate when he went out on the road. My father and I also took Bob back to Lion Walk at night."

Mrs Flynn's father had an ice-cream round in the Goodrest area and would go out on his push-bike with a colourful Lannies barrow fitted to the front of it.

"Aunt Angelina had her regular sales spot in front of the main gates to Pitchcroft, where she set up her pretty ice-cream cart and stood there in a white coat and black hat."

Mrs Flynn says there was also an "ice-cream, Tizer and pop shop" at 1 Severn Terrace, mainly run by her grandmother, Sarah Jane Lannie.

Francesco Lannie made a few return visits to Italy, to see his parents and family and on one occasion took his son Christopher with him for a reasonably long stay.

"Chris was only a small boy at the time and it seems that when he got back, he had forgotten how to speak English!"

During the Second World War, Italians, comparatively new to England, were interned, and Francesco Lannie would sometimes be called in to act as interpreter when Italians were being questioned at the City Police Station.

He died in the wake of the record Severn flood of 1947. He was already suffering from heart trouble when the family was forced to move to the upper floors of 1 Severn Terrace as flood waters filled the downstairs.

"The upset was traumatic for him and he died in the August, at the age of 71."

His grave, and that of his wife, is in Worcester's Astwood Cemetery and has an ornate headstone.

After Francesco's death, the Lannie ice-cream empire was continued by his sons and daughter, but in a fragmented way.

Sons Nicholas and Christopher took on the business at 1 Severn Terrace; Nick mostly making the ice-cream and Chris and others going out on rounds, to fairs and other outdoor events selling it - by then, from motor vans.

During the winter, and outside the ice-cream "season," Christopher Lannie ran a baked potato stall outside the old Sheep Market, next to the Horn and Trumpet pub in Angel Street. Chris's son, Michael was also involved in the business for a time.

Francesco's youngest son Thomas went into partnership with his sister Angelina, and they too made their ice-cream at 1 Severn Terrace, Thomas driving their van and Angelina selling the ice-cream from it.

Another of Francesco's sons, Michael, had by this time built up a flourishing ice-cream round in Malvern, though he lived in The Moors, Worcester, and produced his ice-cream there.

Angelina Lannie later married a well-known local coal merchant named Dayus and gave up the ice-cream business, as did her brother and partner, Thomas Lannie, who set up a menswear shop in Lowesmoor, trading as Jack's Bargain Stores.

Mrs Flynn spent her first 15 "happy years" at 1 Severn Terrace - "I used to go everywhere with my dad" - but later her father and her mother Molly (maiden name, O'Reilly) moved a short distance away to No.19 Severn Terrace. Alas, Nicholas Lannie died in 1959, at the age of 53, and Christopher then continued the business.

Michael Lannie's daughter, Mrs Florence (Fonce) Burrows, then continued the Lannie ice-cream dynasty into a third generation, taking over her father's rounds and expanding them further in and around Malvern and Worcester, making the ice-cream from premises in Love's Grove.

Alas, Florence Burrows died a few years ago, but her son, Lindsay Burrows and his wife now continue to keep alive the century-old Lannie trade name with the Lannies Catering stall in High Street, Worcester. It occupies a prime spot in front of Barclays Bank and Debenhams - a choice location which would no doubt have been much coveted in his day by Lindsay's great-grandfather!

All the sons and daughters of Francesco and Sarah Jane Lannie are now dead, but there are a lot of Lannie grandchildren and great-grandchildren living in the Worcester area. They have been well-known in several spheres of local life over the years including sport, business, as milk roundsmen and, in the case of a former long-term colleague of mine, John Lannie, in newspapers.

Mrs Flynn aptly and concisely sums up the century of success enjoyed by the Lannie dynasty: "The name used to sell the ice-cream!"

*Recollections of an exile

A WORCESTER "exile" of many years, now living in Bristol, has written to exclaim "And what about the girls?" in response to a recent Memory Lane feature.

It centred on the reminiscences of Tony Phelpotts and his chums of the 1940s who lived in the Boughton Avenue area of the city and regularly gathered around The Stump.

They included Fred James, Les Day, Ray Dovey, Austin Webb and identical twins, Frank and George Perkins.

Mrs Doris Wanklyn, of Rudgeway, Bristol, writes: "What memories your article brought back to me. I was born in Boughton Avenue and knew all the 'gang' mentioned. However, I note that no girls were mentioned though several of my friends and I also used The Stump as our meeting place. Lots of chatting was done there.

"I was then Doris Allan and my friends included Gloria Green, Gladys Roberts, Yvonne Cummings, Barbara Morris and Marian Harwood.

"Like the lads, we went fishing with jam jars in Bubble Brook and also swimming in the River Teme. In fact, I still have a scar on my ankle to prove it!

"I left Worcester when I was 17 and joined the WRAF, later marrying an RAF navigation officer and living overseas for quite a while. However, I will never forget my early years in Worcester. There was lots of sadness but also many happy times.

"I am now 73 and my brother and sister-in-law, Doug and May Allan still live in Boughton Avenue."