chapter XIV - sweets and candy

Whether as a child or teenager, we all have a banquet of memories of sweets and other treats. Sweets, candy call them what you will, they were the lifeline of any child. Nothing used to light up my eyes more than walking past a traditional sweet shop and seeing all those bright coloured, sweet treasures on display. 

Some are lost in time, some have survived various trends etc and will transport us back to happier times whenever we come cross them as an adult. I could just list them as there are no doubt many, but I think I will pick the one's that do hold specific memories. Some are still with us, some have long since disappeared, some have made a nostalgic return.

Back in the day, we kids on a Saturday morning would all trot off to the "pictures"; to the cinema for our Saturday morning club. On the way we would often pick up our favourite comic; beezer, beano, dandy etc, (see the following chapter) always hoping that, that week there would be some free gift inside. Maybe a pea shooter, a plastic gun that fired elastic bands, all manner of politically incorrect and dangerous items! At the cinema, we sat in glee with maybe some toffees, or other sweets as we watched cartoons, a serial of some kind; flash gordon, the lone ranger and the likes, that always ended with a cliff hanger. Then finished with a kids movie of some kind.

These then are some of the treats we might have enjoyed .........

lucky bags

Now I know we had these as kids. They were a commercially made, sealed paper bag that held an assortment of sweets and also a small toy of some kind. Nothing fancy, but something that one might expect to find in a Christmas cracker. I have been reminded that there was often a plastic toy soldier in them, attached to a plastic parachute. That you threw in the air and then watched it come floating down

tuppenny bags

Unlike the commercially made fun bags, these were made up by the local sweetshop owner. Small, white, square paper bags filled with two pennies worth of loose sweets. You never knew what you would get, but always hoped it would have your favourites. Some of which may be detailed below. 

gobstopper

Lets start with the grand daddy of them all. Every little boy's favourite; the infamous gobstopper. A humungous candy ball, as hard as rock that one sucked and sucked and sucked and it never seemed to get smaller. 

Every boy's dream, every parents nightmare, especially when it got left on our bedroom sideboard when we got bored with it, left there to stick back in our gob's when the mood took us. Unfortunately more often than not, it either rolled onto the carpet picking up fluff, hair and god knows what (that got either, blown off, rinsed off or just picked off and then stuck back in for another session of sucking it) or our spit combined with the sugar outside, congealed and stuck it to furniture. 

blackjacks & fruit salads

These along with their sister sweet 'fruit salad' were a staple of most child of the 60's. 

Unlike these modern day wrappers, our blackjacks came with a very un PC wrapping. Back with white rather than this white with black wrapper and ours had the picture of ...... well, what is now referred to a golli on it. 

I always thought they were licorice flavoured, but seeing them recently for sale they are advertised as being aniseed flavoured. They were a black coloured candy anyway, that always left your lip, tongue and teeth stained a lovely black if you ate enough of them. 

While the fruit salads, were an orange colour or were they orange and yellow stripe? Anyway, if you bought a tuppeny bag of sweets, you could guarantee these were both included.

parma violets
Another one that often came in your tuppenny bag of sweets. I always associate these as being girls sweets and were the least favourite of mine when they did end up in my tuppenny bag

I fondly remember, seeing all the bags all made up behind the counter and always tried to choose a bag that I could see didn't have them in. Or at least try, because sometime they were sinisterly hidden, damn them.


refreshers
Crazy, multicoloured, fruit flavoured sweets that created a mild fizz in the mouth when chewed.

What boy wouldn't pop a few in his mouth, crunch them up like crazy and try and make the mouth fill with saliva and create a fizzy bomb in their mouth? Or if you were lucky enough to have fizzyy lemonade at hand ...... hmmmm ..... or maybe it was just me?

red sugar peanuts

These little sugary babies had the strangest of flavours. I can't recall what of though, I can 'memory taste' them but cant put my finger on it.

They are a candy coated peanut, also known as French burnt peanuts





popping candy

Of course, that fun with refreshers, was totally superceded when popping candy was introduced. In the UK, I think I am right in saying the first one was called pop rocks, and introduced to us in the late 70's. 

An American creation (of course) these were such a sensation when introduced and often small packets were given away in children comics. Such were their sensation I remember them being featured in many a TV show

Pop some of these into a sponge cake recipe, cup cake recipe or in some cooled melted chocolate and re-mould it for an excellent treat for a kiddies birthday party. 

hubble bubble

as an adult I detest chewing gum. But as a child, like any boy I was in love with Bazooka Joe's bubble gum. A large round pink blob of chewing gum, that came neatly wrapped and also always included a miniature comic strip inside. 

Unfortunately, it was an American import. Which meant us boys in the UK could never take advantage of the treasures that it offered our American cousins; joining the Bazooka Joe club, or saving the token wrappers until we had saved enough to send away for a free gift; like X-Ray glasses or a spy camera. I was always so jealous of those American kids that could get all this cool free stuff.  

golden nuggets
I loved these! Small nuggets of chewing gum, chewing rather than bubble gum as I remember? That were made to look like gold nuggets and sold in little cloth pouches. Brilliant marketing ploy.

They had a flavour of thier own, and I would try to pop only a few in my mouth. But as try as I might, like most kids I think I would end up tipping half a bag in my gob and chewing like crazy

I made every kid feel like a gold prospector.

bubble gum & chewing gum machines
Remember when these were chained up outside almost every local corner shop or newsagent? Often bubble gum balls in one,  with the other holding little plastic 'eggs' with a toy inside or huge gobstoppers.

Then there was the wall mounted machines that usually dispensed the Wrigley brand. Usually the spearmint or greenmint flavours, and later on the yellow juicy fruits. All originally as the little candy coated pellets and then the familiar paper thin strips, each individually wrapped in foil

chocolate vending machines
Outside the same newsagent, or just on some random council owned wall used to be machines bolted to the wall vending chocolate bars.

They were sturdy, solid metal machines that later got glass fronts. And for all that they always seemed to work and were never vandalised.

sweet cigarettes and tobacco

Horror of horrors, there were actually sweets for kids that promoted smoking! There were white candy sticks with a red tip, that often came in packets that were linked to popular TV shows, most of the kiddies shows!!

There was also chocolate pipes and cigars (always popular at Christmas time), chewing gum cigars and also something called Spanish Gold. Spanish Gold was a 'chewing tobacco', in actual fact slithers of reddish/brown strips of coconut. 

sweet peanuts

A hard candy coated sweet, that 'resembled' a peanut shell, that housed chopped salted peanuts. Another favourite of my mother's, which again explains why we all liked them in our family .... like what mum liked and bought, or go without!

Try as you might, and as strong willed and determined as you were, you could never pop one in your mouth and suck it until the outside candy shell gave in to the the chopped nut inner. After a minute or so of that lovely butter toffee casing being in your mouth, you just had to crunch into them

spangles

a type of boiled sweet, brightly coloured yet see through that came individually wrapped in a paper 'tube', they were a rounded square in shape with a circular depression. Originally they came in a tube of a variety of flavours, then later individual flavour tubes were introduced. |Mainly fruit flavours, but there was also; barley sugar, spearmint, peppermint and pear drop. The Old English tube came with a selection of licorice, mint humbug and pear drops. 

sherbet 

Mother loved sherbet fountains, she loved a sweet that delivered both a hit of sweet and sharp. There were two main types; one was the classic from Barrett's; a yellow paper tube filled with a white sherbert and a hollow licorice stick to either dip into the sherbert of to suck it through. But, no matter how many times I tried I don't remember ever being able to suck it through that licorice stick.

A second version, known as sherbet dabs was made by the individual shopkeeper; loose sherbet placed into a small white paper bag with a small sugar lollipop in it. Later in was sold in space aged plastic tubes

The sherbet in this case was not the fine white powder of the Barrett's version, but a bright coloured mixture of sugar, citric acid and bicarbonate of soda (baking soda). The recipe for which is below, if you want to make your own.

I like to make some up and use it as part of a dessert, maybe a shot glass full or just a small pile of it on the plate. Or how about a dessert platter with some sherbert on, a mini home made lollipop, a mini toffee apple (scooped using a melon baller) and other variations of all your childhood sweets. Makes a great, fun dessert and will transport your guests back to their own childhood memories. 

recipe - sherbet home made

003 tbs jelly crystals 

002 tbs icing sugar

001 tbs citric acid

001 tbs baking soda

recipe preparation

place all ingredients into a bowl and combine thoroughly with a fork 

jelly tots

Aimed at toddlers, these were baby sized rounds of jelly, covered in sugar.

The advert said; "roundtree jelly tots in small hands and the mum who buys them understands, that in small hands they're right to eat, the jelly soft and the sugar sweet. There's twenty, thirty, forty or more, red ones, yellow one's, colours galore, in the jelly tot bag ...."

Now if that jingle is still in my head 40 years later, the marketing must have been doing something right! 

barley sugar twists

When my father was alive and we went on any long car journeys e.g. Wales to Plymouth, mum would always have barley sugars on hand to prevent car sickness. But further to that, we would on occasion be given a twisted stick of barley sugar. Memory over reality is a strange thing, these sticks in my mind were huge in length. In reality, thinking back, they probably weren't much more than six inches long. But would seem massive to a child.

These were sold only in Boots the Chemist, which was nothing unusual back then. Especially when we consider the likes of coca cola started its life sold from pharmacies. Along with these barley sugar twists, they also sold a caramel/toffee version that had chocolate running though the middle.


fruit pips

These were sold loose, so you would get them in a little rectangular paper bag, or cone shaped if you were lucky, but mostly UK retailers used rectangular or square paper bags.

They were large pip sized, fruit flavoured hard candy.


brazil nut toffee

A firm favourite of my mother's was a rectangular slab of clotted cream toffee, with brazil nut pieces inside. It was cellophane wrapped and every slab would come with a small hammer with which to crack pieces off the slab.

Saturday nights or Sunday afternoon's in our house would often be spent watching TV with mum, and cracking into a slab and spending hours chewing on this toffee. And you needed hours, as it took ages to chew even the smallest of pieces.

bonbons

The French mat use this word to describe 'sweets' in general, but in the UK they are a specific variety. An olive sized round of toffee, covered in a sweet or sour icing sugar coating. 

Plain white (sweet) and a lemon (sour) ones were the favourites in our household. There was an old style sweet shop down the road from us in Plymouth that sold all its sweets loose, no pre-packaged treats, just jars and jars of sweet treats. Many a Sunday afternoon one of us kids would be sent down to get a 'quarter' of bonbons (quarter of a imperial pound). 

licorice 

my first introduction to licorice were the raw woody sticks. We would get these when I was a child in Wales. whether it was because it was a healthy aternative or because it was cheaper, I have no idea. But we would sit and chew and chew on these things until they were no more.

Then of course there were the delicious black sweet licorice; another joy inherited from my mother. Although later in life I discovered the Dutch version that comes in sweet, salted or very salted. My childhood memories however are of licorice strips and these licorice paddles.

There was also pontefract cakes; small, round licorice sweets that mum would often have a 'quarter' of in her handbag. These had the word pontefract pressed into them

 Later on we were introduced to red licorice. Red licorice? This was one of those childhood memories, one of those amazing discoveries that just stunned you.


licorice allsorts
Of course the king of kings as far as licorice is concerned is Basset's Licorice Allsorts.

Marketed with Bertie, a cartoon man made from Basset's Licorice Allsorts ..... how many of you knew his name, or that he even had one?

Coconut covered, plain twists, layered ones, licorice jelly covered in little candy balls ..... or as the advert said, "blue one's said Greg, thanks Greg, pink one's Doris of Swindon, we'll call you Doris .... licorice allsorts, every one is somebody's favourite"

crisps

Crisps or potato chips, have been around since 1853 when legend has it they were created by Chef George Crum of Saratota Springs, New York. In the UK they became commercially available when the Smith's Company started mass producing them in 1920. They came in a bag, with salt wrapped in a twist of blue greaseproof paper, very plain, very simple. Which explains the name these days of 'ready salted', as we don't need to salt them ourselves. The biggest manufacturer next to Smith's was Golden Wonder.

From that simple idea and single flavour, we now have so many. But also we have many flavours that have either changed greatly or disappeared from the shelves completely. Not everything improves with time; smoky bacon flavour is one that differs greatly from those of yesteryear and not in a good way. As is chicken flavour that used to be called roast chicken, a name change with good reason, they used to really taste like a roast chicken dinner. Flavours that no longer seem to be with us include:

• oxo
• bovril
• salt and pepper
• tomato ketchup. 

Sunday afternoon tea in our house included sandwiches and crisps. The sandwiches were more often than not either ham or tinned salmon, which were always greatly enhanced by opening them, piling in some crisps, replacing the bread and then squashing them flat, so the crisps break up. A small bag of them was also a welcome sight during the week for supper with some cheese and pickles. 

chipsticks
In the early 70's we were introduced to a new type of potato snack. One where the potato had been processed, mic with corn and then re-shaped. In this case to something resembling a chip.

It came in two flavours, plain (or ready salted) and salt and vinegar. We had these from time to time for a treat when mum on a rare night out went 200 yrads up the road for a game of bingo on a Tuesday or Thursday night. We so looked forward to hearing the door open at 8.30pm to see what mum had brought us back.


twiglets
These will be a total enigma to those countries that don't enjoy the flavour of marmite. That wonderfully delicious thick, black, meaty spread that one loves or hates with a passion.

A twiglet is best described as a small twig, dipped in marmite. In reality they are small twig shaped pieces of baked biscuit that has been sprayed? with marmite. Introduced to the market by the British Peek Freens company in the 1920's. But they were in fact the creation of a French manager who worked for them; Rondalin Zwadoodie.

They were far more expensive than the usual snacks like potato crisps, so as a kid we saw them rarely. But my Aunty Marg, who lived just a few doors down often had these in her house. And it is with her these will always be linked in my memories. It is with her that I thank for my love of these salty, savoury, hard little crunchy bits.