THE search is on for an old-fashioned ice cream recipe which brought joy to Ramsbottom families.

Businessman Kevin Skillin hopes to discover the secret behind his favourite childhood treat and serve it up at a restaurant he hopes to create at the former Horse and Jockey pub he has just bought in Market Street, Edenfield.

Mr Skillin said: “When I was 10 I moved to Ramsbottom and The Dairy Box ice cream was the best around.

“The ice cream was as light as a sorbet but not as sweet, it was indescribable. People are still talking about it 25 years on.”

The secret recipe was passed down to subsequent owners when the Bolton Street shop was sold on in the late 1980s.

But when the building became a Chinese restaurant in the mid-1990s the recipe was lost.

Mr Skillin said: “There was a father and son who ran it as a cafe and I think they were the last ones that still had the recipe.”

He has been in talks with confectionery businesses, including John Slattery from the Whitefield company.

Anyone with information about the recipe is asked to contact his son Mark Skillin by email at mark@urbanlifeproperties.net or 07595 183 691.