What's in a word?

Anyone know what a slippy curry is?

I was talking to Sally Ann Matthews who is appearing in the excellent thriller The Business of Murder at Lichfield Garrick along with Todd Carty (just thought I would drop a few names in there). Like me she hails from Oldham, so it was a matter of talking over old times and old haunts.

I just happened to mention slippy currys and she knew immediately what I meant and I remembered a conversation I had had some time ago with a Birmingham headmaster who also came from Oldham. We all reckon it is purely an Oldham word. As to its origin I have no idea.

A slippy curry is an ice-slide. As kids we used to make them by compacting snow on the pavement and sliding along it until we produced a narrow sheet of ice where you could get up a fair old speed if you could keep your balance. Sledging, that is riding a toboggan rather than slagging off an incoming batsman, would also produce useful sheets of ice which could be turned into slippy currys.

Some would last as long as the snow while others had their life shortened by a sprinkling of Cerebos table salt by some home-permed harridan threatening to call the local bobby because we were trying to break her leg when she went to the shops.

The question is though has anyone not from Oldham heard of a slippy curry? And what do the rest of the country call ice-slides?