Lyons Maid

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Lyons Maid was a brand of ice-creams and ice-lollies created in 1925 [1] as a spin-off from the J. Lyons and Co. retail organisation.

Well known brands produced by Lyons Maid included Zoom, Fab and Haunted House.

Its heyday was probably the 1970's when a vast range of ice-lollies. This range often had tie-ins to well-known characters from TV and film and free gifts. It often involved inventive wrapper designs, and cartoon strips were also launched.

Examples include a tie-in with Space 1999 with free cards of episodes inside the wrapper, Star Wars with free masks of major characters and film facts on the wrappers, The Bionic Man, Superman and even a Goal lolly with lolly sticks containing famous footballers of the day!

More information on Lyons and images of Lyons Maid ice-lolly wrappers via the following website: [2]

The Lyons Maid brand logo, officially known as the 'Good Time Sign', was initially introduced on ice cream vans only but was eventually phased in across the whole product range where it continued to be used on branding and shop signage until Lyons Maid was bought up and absorbed by Nestlé in 1992.

Lyons Maid's chief rival was Wall's ice cream owned by Unilever. Walls produced such staples as Mini Milk which is still in production.