chapter XVI - chocolate bars

chocolate vending machines

Outside most newsagents, 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.

nestles crunch
One of my favourites and one of my younger sister's too, so she told me on the weekend. A chocolate bar lavishly laced with rice krispies. Yum!

This was one available from chocolate vending machines, in my case from outside the Jepson Post Office in Beaumont Road. Where I would often stop on the way home from a college disco, to satisfy a drunken sugar hit need.


yorkie
Still readily available, this I remember was the very first of the chunky chocolate bar.

Until Nestles brought this out, all chocolate bars were either a bar made up small squares or a totally flat slab of chocolate (god I miss a flat Cadburys chocolate bar). You could just push out the silver foil wrapped bar from the purple paper 'tube' cover, unravel some of the foil and munch away as little or as much as you liked

five boys

A good old fashioned flat chocolate bar that had the faces of five boys in various emotions, happy, sad, crying etc. It was launched over 100 years ago in 1902 by Fry's (later bought out by Cadbury's) who continued to produce it.

It was probably the most famous chocolate bar in the world for decades, before its discontinuation in 1976. And now, sadly, probably one of the least remembered

cadbury's flake 

Still with us, still a UK favourite. Cadbury's made the most incredible adverts for the television too, that most people will still remember fondly as I do, AND still sing the jingle decades later. Originally it came wrapped, with the ends simply twisted closed. but unfortunately its another one that has lost its innocent charm due to health and safety.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrKUwUGwQfs

Eating a flake was a ritual, it was an art. The thing about eating a flake was, one unwrapped it totally and kept the unravelled wrapper under your chins when you bit into it. Then, due to the chocolate's delicate nature, pieces or crumbs would fall off and be caught. Then once you had finished the flakey, chocolate log, you could enjoy that one extra 

little sin and simply tip the otherwise discarded crumbs onto your tongue. 

But the new ones, now come sealed in a tube of paper, that does not allow for an easy unravelling of the paper.

caramac

My least favourite of all chocolate bars ever! As the name denotes, it was a caramel coloured and flavoured chocolate bar. 

It was also quite fatty in texture, probably due to it containing very little chocolate solids

butter snap

I remember it but not exactly its make up. I am thinking a thi layer of peanut butter covered in chocolate?


tiffin
Coming from the Fry's camp, and later taken on by Cadbury's it was a chocolate bar filled with fruits, nuts and grains. 

The term tiffin become popular in Colonial India, when it meant a small meal, like afternoon tea or a small lunch. 

But it's original meaning was any small snack eaten between meals, so the chocolate bar is appropriately name



finger of fudge

The jingle told us that apparently .... "a finger o' fudge is just enough, to give a kid a treat. A finger o' fudge is just enough until its time to eat. Its full of Cadbury's goodness and very small and neat. A finger of fudge is just enough to give your kids a treat" Not only that, like many sweets and chocolate bars in days of old, they put the price on the packaging. A weird concept to most these days I bet.

startbar
the jingle for this one informed us that "the next time you have an energy crisis have a starbar".

Billed as the chewiest, nuttiest bar around.

raspberry ruffle

Still with us? Or has this one been committed to the that great chocolate bar graveyard in the the sky? As I remember this was raspberry flavoured coconut, covered in chocolate

other chewy chocolate bars of old 

chocolate bars come and go. It seems a new type is brought out, market tested and if it doesn't grab the public's attention and become a massive hit and firm favourite they just disappear into the mists of time. Among those of my childhood, that are no longer with us include 

• marathon - still here but now renamed snickers
• aztec       - a rival to the Topic 

swisskit
I'dd risk it for a Swisskit ..... so said the TV advert, well so said, the man daringly skiing down a Swiss snow slope.



walnut whip
Probably my all time favourites. It came in a clear cellophane wrapper, with a small cardboard base.

The thing about walnut whips were the method of eating

• bite of the walnut without disturbing the chocolate
• bite of the chocolate top
• insert tongue to scoop out the marshmallow centre
• nibble the chocolate sides down
• finally enjoy the extra thick chocolate base

wagon wheels
Is it just me or were these HUGE when we were kids, I'm sure they were much bigger than they are today? Or is it just because I have got bigger?

Another treat that for me was resigned to my Aunty Marg's house, cos we never had them in the house when I was growing up



bar six
A competitor of the kit kat, it was the Cadbury's version of the Nestles classic. Simply, yet cleverly named as it contained six bars of chocolate covered biscuit.

This one seemed to be around for years and then suddenly went away.

 smarties

smarties are like the chocolate M & Ms. They are still around, but 'elf & safety' knocked all the fun out of them. Now they are in a 'sanitised' version of their famous tube. Originally they came in a cardboard tube that had a plastic lid. The lid had a little tab on it for easy removal, and on the inside of it a capitalised letter of the alphabet, so you could collect them to spell out your name or whatever took your fancy. Often they were swapped amongst school friends to get the letters you needed.

Or if you weren't collecting them, on finishing the little candy coated, chocolate beans you would put the lid back in, place the tube on the floor and stamp on it. Thus causing a loudish 'POP' and the lid would fly off in the aimed direction. No such fun now though. The new safe version has robbed kids of that little pleasure in life.

curly wurly
Another that is still available, but worthy of a mention. If only for the fact of the very amusing TV adverts for it that had Terry Scott dressed as a naughty schoolboy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycSq4CnFm8M

These were one of the treats my mother would sometimes bring back, after one of her rare nights out to the local bingo hall

toffee buttons
Small chocolate buttons with a hard toffee centre.

Definately not for those with fillings, especially child's national health nurse fillings!




weekend chocolate box

These were a box of chocolates with a difference. Not only did it have chocolates, but also toffees, candies and marzipans too.

I remember these as being a cheap alternative to a 'box of chocolates' that us kids probably bought for our mum's on Mother's Day. They came in a cool box though, as it had a hard cardboard lid as I remember? Which made it great for storing our crayons etc in after mum had eaten them all