IT doesn’t take much for readers to go skipping off into nostalgia. I only had to mention Blackjacks and Old Timer was jotting down all sorts of delights from yesteryear.
And he was away, saying: “What about Bulls Eyes, Swizzels, Sweet Potatoes, Gob Stoppers, Penny Chews. Wax lips that you could chew like gum. Walls ice cream fruit push ups that were in a three cornered blue and white tube. Happy memories.”
And don’t forget Love Hearts, Spangles, Spacedust, Bazooka Bubblegum, liquorice root sticks, sherbert dabs, Refreshers, Fizzers, Sarsaparilla Tablets and Fry’s Five Boys chocolate bars.
Among many other confectionery delights, Old Timer mentioned sweet cigarettes. It was not that long ago that mums out shopping with their children would buy 20 Silk Cut for themselves and a packet of sweet cigarettes for their youngster.
They came in a packet just like grown up cigarettes and had red tips so the underage could get into the habit of holding a fag between two fingers in emulation of adults. Fortunately, once purchased they didn’t last long because they tasted too good.
When I was a child they were sold in innocence because the dangers of smoking were not fully known, but I’m sure they were still being sold not that long ago.
They are still available, by the way, but are now called Candy Sticks and have no red end.
There are retro sweet websites on the internet where you can still get many of the old favourites, including politically incorrect chocolate cigars. Then there is a chocolate tool box for the useless man about the house.
“Are you going to mend that hinge?”
“I would but Kirsty ate my screwdriver.”
Then there’s a chocolate Swiss Army Knife which is no good at all for getting boy scouts out of horse’s hooves and the one item that really was a shock – the Chocolate Russian Roulette game.
Now that’s just the thing to buy your eight-year-old for Christmas.
“Spin the gun to choose your chocolate,” says the blurb. “Eleven are filled with delicious praline but the twelfth is filled with enough hot chilli to blow your head off!”
Would you put one of those under your Christmas tree?
