Remember a sweet but no-one you know has heard of it? Whatever happened to your favourite?

When I think back to my 1970’s childhood, many things blend into memories, Sweets, music, comics and television. However sweets seem to evoke the more powerful recollections. I remember going to the newsagents with my mum, during a power cut. We walked in and there were dozens of candles flickering all over the shop counter.

Shadows danced across the newspapers, magazines and sweets. My mum wanted to pay our paper bill, but all I wanted was some sweets. She tried to push one of the One new Pence wafers on me, but I would have none of it, having made that mistake before, nasty excuse for an air filled tasteless treat.

I knew better and instead went for the black Jacks and Fruit Salads, with these you got quality for your money. Looking back now, a newsagent’s filled with burning candles seems so ludicrous, but this was very commonplace during that era.

May 1978 will always stick in my mind. I was kicking a football against a wall with some friends, a kind of Manchester city streets youth club. We had just come back from the shop and I was unwrapping a Wagon Wheel. In those days these chocolate covered mallow biscuits seemed huge, a real treat to put you on until tea time.

I had taken a bite, when a car pulled up in the middle of the road. We were shouted over by the driver, who flashed us a police warrant card stamped CID and asked if we’d seen anything out of place or any strangers. We were all open mouthed when he mentioned that the Yorkshire ripper had struck again near St Mary’s hospital.

We all knew that our mother’s and sisters were all terrified of that particular horror which was stalking the streets that year. We were just a group of lads kicking a ball around and would remember more the high drama of having met real detectives, just like the Sweeney, Shat it! And so we tucked into our sweets and I found my Wagon Wheel extra tasty now that it was filled with excitement.

My friend Steve would laugh at my Wagon Wheel mania, because to him it was a biscuit and not a sweet and so he would dangle Fruit Gums, Strawberry Bootlaces, Chocolate cigars and Sweet Tobacco under my nose, but still I would always stand my ground, well nearly always.

ENDS

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Does anyone know what happened to Amazin’ Rasin bars which were around at the beginning of the 70s.? I was also reminiscing about Pink Panther “chocolate” (pink candy) yesterday. Anyone remember this? Thanks

I have a sweet memory of Anglo Bubbly. Here’s the first paragraph to give you a taste of the writing:

“Whenever I see the distinctive blue Anglo Bubbly wrapper with a yellow oval and red writing, it sends me right back to the early seventies. My sister and I just loved bubble gum, the sweet flavour combined with the wonderful texture made it a taste sensation. You popped one into your mouth and it was to all intense and purposes a hard sweet, but once it warmed up, the softness oozed round your mouth, releasing even more of the sweet loveliness. Plus, it could last for as long as you wanted it to, seemingly endless chewing opportunities unravelled once you had one.”

Thanks for your time,
Iona

In the fifties, thick smog would often press down over Wigan on cold winter mornings. Like many other young children, I walked to school. On foggy days we wore woollen scarves over our mouths, tied at the back of the neck.
On the way, I passed May’s toffee shop. Tempting if you had a three penny bit but irresistible if you had the possibilities of a sweet sixpence. It made all the difference between two ounces of ‘kayli ’ in a small cone shaped paper bag (with a ‘spanish’ to lick and soak up the fizzy powder) or a substantial quarter of something else. Cinder toffee that melted on the tongue like honey? Squidgy coconut mushrooms, long-lasting Uncle Joe’s mint balls, gleaming black Pontefract cakes or Cherry Lips? Or maybe a bar of chocolate – a Fry’s Five Centres . How about a liquorice root or a coltsfoot rock? Both were an acquired taste but cheap and warming in a freezing school playground. Or six somethings from the ‘penny tray’? Bubble gum, penny chews, Black jacks, gob stoppers, sweet cigarettes? Choosing was an excruciating pleasure.
May seemed an old lady to me as a child, white- haired and lavender scented. She wore parma violet blouses, lace collars and an ageing grey crocheted shawl but may well have been only in her fifties. When the shop bell rang she appeared from behind a curtain and took her place at the counter. She would wait patiently while some scruffy little lad took forever choosing eight items from the penny tray. Invariably he would have to put six back on producing just tuppence. May seemed sorry to deprive children of what they really fancied and would sometimes throw in a white mouse for free.
Further up the road was a tobacconist. If caught short my mother would send me out for a packet of Player’s cigarettes. The shop was small and had a similar lay-out to May’s but Bill, the shop keeper, was a bent old man. He announced his arrival from the back by coughing his guts out. I mean serious coughing. There were intriguing jars of different curls of pipe tobacco on the shelves, racks of pipes, pipe cleaners and other implements. Snuff was used in those days and Bill weighed it out on small brass scales on the counter. I liked the shop’s rich, grand-fatherly aroma.

Jennifer Guilliard