I was always throwing the Big Yin out . . . but he couldn't resist coming back for more

"He was trouble. I was always throwing him out," Mario chuckles, conceding, however, that the Big Yin was never aggressive.

Connolly always came back for more. Most people do. Amalia's cafe is an East End institution

IRN-BRU sorbet? What on earth would Amalia Coia make of it? Is she turning in her grave? In fact, she'd probably wish she'd thought of it first.

For the Italian iron lady and astute businesswoman who founded Coia's Cafe in Dennistoun's Duke Street certainly knew what her customers wanted.

They came from all over the East End and beyond to Dennistoun for her traditional ice-cream made from her still-secret recipe.

"It's a custard base," reveals her grandson, Alfredo, who now runs the cafe. "You boil the milk until it coats the spoon and cools. We don't use cream, although we sometimes make a clotted cream ice-cream or a brandy ice-cream with cream for special occasions."

Like her husband, Charles, a carpenter to trade, Amalia came to Scotland from Monte Cassino in the south of Italy at the turn of the 20th century.

Amalia's wee cafe and confectionery shop at 570 Duke Street on the corner of Millerston Street next to the Scotia picture house was opened in 1928.

"She was a very, very strong woman who was very much for getting on in life - the family more or less lived in the shop.

"That was their life," says Alfredo, 44, who runs Coia's with the help of his father, Nicky, 75.

Generations of Glaswegians did their courting over a McCallum's at Coia's Cafe with its special atmosphere and beautifully crafted wooden booths made by Charles.

"A McCallum's is an ice-cream with raspberry," says Nicky.

"The story is that it's called after a Celtic coach.

"They would train round the streets of Parkhead and this chap, McCallum, would pop into our cafe for his favourite."

Nicky also recalls that one of the most popular ice-creams used to be a Black Man.

Nothing racist there. It was a nougat ice cream and the favourite of miners, men covered with black coal dust.

"An ice-cream van would wait at the top of the mines for the miners coming up from work and the first thing these men wanted was an ice-cream to clear their throats."

The old cafe was demolished during road widening 20 years ago.

A painting of it hangs in pride of place in the present cafe, now at 437 to 477 Duke Street and much changed.

Amalia would be proud. Alfredo and his wife, Antonia, have taken it upmarket and turned it into a licensed restaurant and delicatessen.

But despite the attractions of flavoured ice-creams and sorbets, Amalia's original vanilla ice-cream is still the biggest seller.

The fame of Cafe D'Jaconelli's award-winning ice-cream goes far beyond Maryhill.

Over the years, the cafe with its etched glass door of a knickerbocker glory, cigarette and ashtray and traditional interior with juke box and rows of bottles of old-fashioned sweeties has featured in films like Trainspotting - Ewan McGregor had a milkshake here in the film - and Carla's Song, starring Robert Carlyle. Part of Tutti Frutti starring Robbie Coltrane was also shot here.

Fans of Jaconelli's ice-cream include Robert Carlyle, who used to live nearby, Marsha Hunt, Mick Jagger's ex- girlfriend, and sports presenter Hazel Irvine.

Mario sold the iconic cafe at Maryhill Road to James Evans 15 years ago.

But like other heads of Glasgow ice-cream dynasties, including Rudi Colpi and Nicky Coia, Mario doesn't believe in retirement.

At 83, he still reports for work in Jaconelli's fish and chip shop at 1495 Maryhill Road, run by his son, Paul, and daughter, Beth, putting in five or six hours a day seven days a week.

And he is still a regular visitor to his former cafe.

"Mario, Mario," cries every customer who comes in to Cafe D'Jaconelli, greeting him like a long-lost friend, for the place has been an institution in Maryhill ever since his father bought the business in 1924 for £500.

"Everybody knows me and I know everybody," Mario grins.

James, now 36, looks on benignly. He was just 21 and a tiler to trade when he bought the cafe from Mario.

Coming from the South Side, he hadn't a clue about Jaconelli's reputation.

"But my mum and I pulled up outside one April night and saw a queue right round the shop for ice-cream and my mum said That's it.'"

"I wasn't sure he would have the enthusiasm," admits Mario, "but he was willing to learn."

James has branched out into flavoured ice-creams but agrees that vanilla will always be the most popular.

"And I've got to make it the same or I'll get into trouble from Mario," he says ruefully. "If I'm half a pound of sugar short, he'll say there's something not right."

So what's the secret, as if either man is going to tell?

"It was a simple recipe at the beginning, just ordinary milk, cornflour and sugar with a taste of vanilla," says Mario.

"But I am a bit of a perfectionist. I tried for a long time and eventually got the taste I wanted and they came from all over the place for my ice-cream."

Today's health inspectors would have a fit at how the ice-cream was originally made.

"About 40 gallons had been boiled on top of a gas burner and you had to stir it with a flat wooden thing like a spade to make sure it didn't burn on the bottom," recalls Mario.

Twenty open buckets filled with the cooling milk mixture stood on the kitchen floor at the mercy of any curious fly.

"We had an ice-cream churn but my mother had to pack ice round this utensil and turn it. We scraped the mixture off the side and kept doing that till the whole lot became ice-cream.

"We stored it in another freezer packed with ice. If it got too cold, we used to pour water round it and if it wasn't cold enough, we put salt round.

"Fortunately, it wasn't too long before they invented electric motors."

Mario was born in Glasgow and brought to the cafe for the first time at the age of three months.

His father, Sante, had been the first of his family to emigrate to Scotland from a village in the mountains near Cassino.

"Sante means holy and he was anything but holy,"

says his son. "He was a bad-tempered so and so who allowed my mother to work herself to death."

He was obviously an entrepreneur. Eventually, he owned three shops with another business running one-armed bandits on the side.

Mario doesn't remember his father at all - he died when he was only six after a minor operation went wrong, leaving his wife, Teresa, with four children, all under 10.

The two youngest were sent to Italy to live with their grandparents. "I looked after nanny goats in the mountains and I didn't see my mother for six years.

"My grandfather brought me back when I was 11 - he was in Liverpool selling ice-cream out of a barrow in the streets in the summer months."

The family lived on top of the business, working from 9am till the cafe closed its doors at 11pm seven days a week.

"We sold no foodstuffs," recalls Mario, "just ice-cream, cigarettes and chocolate and soft drinks and ice-cream in the sitting room."

James almost modernised the cafe but listened to his customers and drew back in time.

"At the time I bought it, I was too young to appreciate it," he says ruefully. "I'm a McDonald's generation, everything plastic." Timesfile

MANY ITALIANS came to Scotland in the late 19th century to escape harsh economic conditions at home.

Glasgow was the third most popular destination and by the early years of the 20th century, the immigrant population was nearing 5000. The first Italian ice-cream vendors were known as the "hokey pokey" boys. They sold their home-made ice-cream direct from barrows, shouting "Gelati, ecco un poco" - ice cream, have a look. By dint of hard work, the new immigrants to Glasgow graduated to horse-drawn vans and then shops or cafes. In 1905, there were around 336 ice-cream outlets in Glasgow alone, each making its own on the premises. The population became so addicted church leaders spoke out against it, one describing the cafes as "perfect iniquities of hell itself".