LEANING back in his green plastic garden chair, the Italian twinkle in Frank Penna's eyes is the same as it was 45 years ago.
And it is not the only thing that has not changed.
Everything inside the café at Pearson Park – from the green marble counter to the emulsion-coated shelves stacked high with plastic footballs – looks just how it did when Frank first stepped foot inside more than four decades ago.
In an ever-changing city, which is set for even bigger transformations, the small, unassuming café has been a constant comfort in thousands of people's lives spanning three, and in some families, four, generations.
It is just the way Frank likes it.
"It feels like yesterday we got the keys," said Frank, 82, taking a big lick of his daily dose of vanilla ice cream.
"It just feels the same as it did when I took it on and the reason for that is because it has always been pleasurable.
"We have never got bored. There is always plenty of people to talk to, old friends, new friends. There has always been a happy atmosphere."
Frank and his wife, Anne, 82, took on the lease of the Hull City Council-owned building when they were both 37 years old and parents to five young children.
He is one of a long line of Frank Penna's who have sold ice cream on the streets of Hull for more than 120 years.
His grandfather, of the same name, arrived in Hull as an Italian immigrant trying to make his way to New York from the docks in the 1890s. He did not get that far.
Instead, he settled in Hull and formed Frank Penna and Sons, an ice cream business selling cones of the cold stuff out of horse-drawn carts and push-barrels from Pickering Park in Hull.
The business survived the turn of the century and into the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, when a young Frank joined the family business with his cousins.
But, after the Second World War, rations meant ice cream could no longer be made and the family turned to selling fire wood for three years.
When rations were lifted, business was back and queues lined the length of the streets from the cart once more.
Looking across his customers, Frank, who also ran a shop in Worthington Street, knew this was the business he belonged in and by July 1969, he had started a year trial at the Pearson Park Café.
"I knew back then I would have my own place one day," said Frank.
"I was born into the ice cream business and I was thinking back to the days at Pickering Park when I took it on.
"We fell in love with the place and we still really like being here. We don't really see it as work."
HISTORY: Top, the Pennas outside the café in Pearson Park. Above, the family business was originally established in the 1890s.The café provided a business that was easy to fit around their children, who would play for hours in the park and enjoy an endless supply of ice cream and lollies.
Their youngest, Claudia, who was just two years old when they opened, has fond memories of sitting on the counter with her legs dangling over the side, watching her parents hard at work.
"It is all I have ever known," said Claudia, who is now partner in the business. "Wherever mum and dad were, so was I. It is like my second home. I just love it."
The park is set to benefit from a £2.3m Heritage and Big Lottery investment, which will be used to restore the park to its heyday, with the café featuring in the bid.
The bid, which has been put together by the Pearson Park Trust, includes improving the attractiveness of the building and creating a new paved area to the front and sides of it.
But it is not the building that makes the café what it is.
Over the years, suited and booted businessmen have approached the council and the Pennas in a bid to take on the lease, but each one has been rejected by the council and given short shrift by Frank and Anne, who are determined to keep the Penna name forever associated with ice cream in Hull.
"We are a very close family, with good, family values," said Anne.
"All the grandchildren grew up here – we wouldn't allow them to go to nursery – and they all come here still today.
"So many people have tried to take it on in the past, but with us having such a good record, they have no chance.
"I would like to see it stay in the family and I think the customers would, too.
"We're happy just the way it is. We are not bothered about doing too much. It is a small, friendly place, where we get to know our customers.
"People might think we are crazy, but we have had a lovely life and we wouldn't change it for anything."
