We met Felicity when she was researching her book and our offices were at that time based in Grey's Inn Road in London - on the doorstep of Carlo Gatti's nineteenth century empire. To the north lay his ice wells at King's Cross and just down the road was Holborn where Carlo opened the first ice cream shop in the country. Carlo was an Italian imigrant who established a business shipping ice to this country which he stored in ice wells, one of which may still be seen at the London Canal Museum. He helped a large number of his fellow countrymen establish themselves in England giving them work either moving, cutting or delivering ice or working in his cafes or as ice cream sellers. He is credited with bringing ice cream to the masses in the Victorian era by sending out vendors pedling 'penny licks'. This book is well written and very thoroughly researched, but it is an intense read, only for those who wish to study the subject to an in depth level. As well as giving an insight into ice cream, it would be very interesting to those interested in Italian social history and the large number of imigrants who established businesses in the UK in the past 150 years or so.
