'I loved selling there' The 13-year battle to win back bustling ice-cream pitch

When he was growing up, Paul St Hilaire Jr thought his dad was the next best thing to Willy Wonka: no one else's dad sold ice-cream for a living.

- Amelia Hill

"I remember sitting in the van, eating my Mr Whippy and feeling superior to children queueing up outside," St Hilaire Jr remembered.

But for the past 13 years, the son - now a solicitor - has been fighting to get his dad's ice-cream pitch back in a David and Goliath battle with Greenwich council. The family have been to court about 10 times. Next month they will take their case to the high court.

"It would be funny if it wasn't so heartbreaking," said St Hilaire Sr, 70. "All this fuss, upset and expense over ice-cream." St Hilaire Sr began trading on King William Walk in Greenwich, south-east London, in the early 1980s to support his seven children, who now largely work in the NHS and education.

The contested pitch on the historic boulevard is one of the most popular spots in Greenwich: look north, and you can see the Royal Naval College and the Cutty Sark - look south, and you can see the park and the Royal Observatory.

"I loved selling ice-cream there, it was beautiful and busy," said St Hilaire Sr. "My customers came from all over the world but had one similarity: they didn't want the expensive ice-cream sold by the National Maritime Museum nearby - they wanted a Mr Whippy."