00:00Hello, I'm Joseph Mirovich. I'm here at the Queen's Retail Park in Stafford, next to one of the famous landmarks of Stafford, the Chloe's Ices ice cream brand.
00:10On what is a, shall we say, warm, muggy, somewhat close day, people might want to have an ice cream. It's not sunny, but it's still very warm.
00:19And within this environment is Carl Simcox, who is one of the people synonymous with the brand.
00:24What's it like in there right now, Bill? Very hot. Very hot, uncomfortable, sticky, but you know, it's part of the job for what you get used to throughout the years.
00:33Have you just found that over the years, on hot days, the demand for ice cream means that you have to sort of sacrifice comfort a little bit?
00:40Yeah, we sacrifice everything. As you can all imagine, people have a bit of a concept that we all sit around waiting for them to call us,
00:49and we have vans waiting. It doesn't work like that. We have set rounds that we go to day in, day out.
00:54And all it means is when the weather gets hotter, our working hours get longer, so this week we've been doing anything from 18 to 20 hours a day.
01:03I suppose there's also the side benefit, but yeah, there's the popularity of ice cream.
01:07So people are going to be out, we're going to be feeling a bit hard, we're going to look at you and go, ooh, I'm suddenly fancy at 99.
01:12Yeah, obviously it's an impulse buy. Ice cream's always been an impulse buy. And what better way to pick yourself up?
01:18How do you cope with being in there all day when it's as hot as it is?
01:22Plenty of fluids, and that's all I can say. I probably drink three, four litres of juice per day, you know.
01:30So yeah, really hydrate yourself.
01:32But you've obviously got to love the job to be able to go through that.
01:34Yeah, you know, like I said, you know, 34 years in the job, you know, never done anything different.
01:39You know, technology now is a lot better than what it ever was.
01:42So, you know, we've got fans and everything now.
01:44Whereas years gone by, we didn't have any of this equipment and it was just get on with it.
01:49In the old days, we used to drive around with the door open.
01:51How do you stop the plates from now? In the fridge. Everything.
01:55So literally we'll work off a couple of boxes.
01:58So one box is in the fridge, one box is out.
02:00We just keep interchanging them to make sure the products are all delivered correctly.
02:04But ice cream is still popular there for what you think it is?
02:07Yeah, and it will make it be popular.
02:10You know, and as long as people want us, we'll be here.
02:14Right. Well, I'm standing inside the ice cream van with Carl.
02:18And it is actually very warm in here, isn't it?
02:20Very warm.
02:21But standing next to this thing, though, at least you know this will be nice and cool inside.
02:25So this went so well last time. Let me just try again.
02:28So, underneath.
02:30Hold it straight.
02:31Hold it straight.
02:32Hold it straight.
02:33Put it a bit higher up.
02:34That's it.
02:35And now slowly pull the handle down.
02:40As it starts coming, just follow the edge of the cone all the way round.
02:44Nice and slowly.
02:45I think that's an improvement on the last one.
02:51That went well.
02:52But still, the most important thing is, it's an ice cream.
02:57It's nice and warm.
02:58So, get out there and enjoy ice cream.
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