This thread is making me laugh!

Gallus Moll, my Father would have given you a sharp slap too! Absolute scream!!

We sang these in the early fifties Gargoyle, in W London. (It was called Middlesex then)

Re the ice-cream vans, the tune always started off very fast, then got slower and slower until it was almost like a dirge. I suppose it was on some wind-up mechanism (no technology then!) Of course, we revelled in singing Popeye at breakneck speed, or extremely slowly, depending on where the ice-cream man was with his music box. The slap was always delivered at the same speed though - rapidly!

We had no TV, but 'Auntie'-Poppy-down-the-road had bought one for the Coronation, and we used to go before tea-time to sit with her two horrible little boys to watch Children's Hour, and that's where we first watched Popeye the Sailor Man. (black-and-white of course, on a screen about one foot square)