Lemonade in the 1920s

At every meeting he was there. With a large, white enamel bucket in one hand and a smaller bucket in the other, he paraded the inside of the rails calling in a high pitched musical voice, ‘Here’s yer Ice-cold Lemon, don’t forget yer ice-cold Lemon at two.’ He was referring to a bright yellow coloured liquid in the large bucket which was supposed to be lemonade, at a temperature which, he claimed, was zero… The smock he wore was pure white, and a piece of net curtaining, bedecked with glass beads, hung daintily over the large bucket to testify to the fact that nothing had been spared in the interests of hygiene.

Our small, parched lungs often yearned for ice-cold lemon, but as the ‘at two’ denoted that the price was twopence a glass, that luxury was not for us. It did occur to me that only an exceptional concoction could be carried up and down a racecourse on a hot mid-summer day and still remain ice-cold, but I supposed it to be due to some skilful brewing process.

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