Karen McDowell (nee McMaster) emailed 'Your Place & mine' to say that in the photograph below of J McMaster's ice cream van, "the two 'unknown' women are on the left Mary Pollock and on the right my grandmother Dorothy McMaster (nee Pollock). Both Mary and my grandmother are alive and well, granny still lives in Ballymoney and Mary (her sister) lives in Dervock. The ice cream cart on that day had been driven by my Granda Alec - who on this occasion was camera shy!"

John McMaster's homemade icecream lorry Mary Pollock (on left) Nellie McClelland (centre) Dorothy McMaster (on right

The editorial team had already been contacted by John McMaster from Ballymoney who's ice-cream lorry features in the Causeway Shops article.

John built the body of that lorry on top of a car. He then fitted it out to sell ice-cream and did the sign writing too. Unfortunately he never photographed it, so was delighted when a member of the your place and mine team visited him and presented him with a copy.

John is the last surviving member of the McMaster family who sold ice-cream during the 1930's and 40's in the Ballymoney area where they were based.

John McMaster

In the early 1930's John's father, James, kept and worked horses for a lving and John can remember the carts hauling bags of flour to a baker in Ballycastle.

One winter James came into possession of a horse-drawn ice-cream cart which he planned to sell to a vendor later in the summer. However one of his children, George, (John's brother) suggested to his mother that, as an experiment, she should try making ice-cream from custard using the ice which George gathered from the top of their horse trough.

It was a success and later that March young George set off from their Meetinghouse Street premises to go around the country in that horse-drawn cart selling his wares. By this time mother (Jane McMaster) was making the ice-cream in a much more hygienic manner with the ice being supplied from the Belfast Ice Company.

Jack McMaster - click on photograph to enlarge it

GROWTH

Throughout the 1930's the business continued to grow until they had three horse-drawn carts and two ice-cream lorries.

Listen as John describes the birth of the firm and his part in building the ice cream lorry featured. By the way, in this audio clip it might sound as if John is talking about his mother "burning" the ingredients. Not so, the word he is using is "boiled".

It really was a family affair with mother, Jane, at home making the ice-cream helped by her daughter Kathleen, whilst on the road were her three sons, George, John and Alex, together with nephew Jack (Pictured) selling the twopence and sixpenny sliders. They covered a considerable area too.

Listen to details of the places the lorries travelled to and a description of George with his horse and cart at the Giant's Causeway.

NO SUGAR = NO CUSTARD

However when the war (WW2) came, trading practically ceased because they could not get the sugar. But come 1945, once hostilities were over, business picked up again and the McMaster's "Ices in all Flavours" horse and carts were soon to be seen once more trotting through Antrim and the North Coast. Mrs Jane McMaster continued making her own brand of ice cream well into her seventies and the firm eventually ceased trading in the late 1940's.

(Archive photos lent by John McMaster and Isobel McKay)