Remember the old sweetie shops, with all the glass jars of sweeties measured out in quarters? And there used to be a tray of assorted sweets, you could buy several for a big old penny. There were black jacks, fruit salads, fizzy planets, bubble guns, gob stoppers, and red liquorice laces. My favourite from the glass jars would be a quarter of cinder toffee or brightly coloured sherbet with a stick of liquorice to dip in.
I used to love the Barley sugar sticks. Used to watch the woman in the shop roll them out and as a young child this was fascinating. It was a special treat to visit her shop and it was like a Willy Wonka world. Such a great range of old fashion sweets.
Some of the sweets mentioned here are too modern for me. Fizzy spaceships indeed!
When sweets were still rationed we could buy lemonade crystals (lick them from the palm of your hand), also Horlick's tablets and Ovaltine tablets, which claimed to be medicinal.
There’s a great sweet shop at St Fagans. I’ve tried to source my favourites, Toffee Crunch, which were hard and shaped like pillows, but they are no longer made sadly.
The toffee crunch you mention was called cinder toffee in our neck of the woods, I loved it, was a bit honeycombed in the middle like the stuff inside a crunchie. Would love to know if you can get it now, but as you say is probs impossible.
Its easy to get here in Glasgow, the pound shops sell it in bags. I have also seen it in Home Bargains. It is lethal, if you have crowns!
The toffee crunch I loved have definitely gone to the sweetie graveyard unfortunately. They were made by Pascalls, and when they were taken over they discontinued them. Other brands make toffee crunch, but they are not the same sweets - these were shaped like pillows, they tasted like, and had had the texture of butterscotch with added toffee taste. My memory can still taste them though!
Does anyone remember 'cherry lips' and 'floral gums'? These were my favourites when I was a child but a recent purchase of both was very disappointing as neither tasted anything like they did years ago.
Babs , I also called liquorice ' Spanish ' remember well the circular ones that resembled a spinning wheel firework but my favorite was the pipe with red sugar sprinkles in the bowl !!
Me and my siblings loved jamboree bags, such happy memories! I remember acid drops , sweet cigarettes! , aniseed balls and kali. Was Kali a northern sweet treat? It was quite different from sherbet. Kali was like coloured sugar but had a variety of flavours. It was sold in a cone shaped paper bag and we dipped our finger in to suck it off - it stained our fingers. I also remember twisted barley sugar sticks , coltsfoot sticks and liquorice root. As I chewed the root it became tasteless and raggy and my Dad used to cut it off with his penknife so I could begin chewing a fresh bit of the root. I also recall a sort of puffed rice , it was coloured but unable to remember it's name. The memories are flooding back !
Maynard’s was our local sweet shop. My favourites were Collard and Bowser butterscotch in individually wrapped oblongs. They always had trays of toffee on the counter that they broke with a small silver hammer. I loved bitter lemons but sucking them gave you a sore tongue! A quarter of Winter Mixture when I had some pocket money left kept me warm on the mile long walk to school in winter time.
There’s a great sweet shop at St Fagans. I’ve tried to source my favourites, Toffee Crunch, which were hard and shaped like pillows, but they are no longer made sadly.
The toffee crunch you mention was called cinder toffee in our neck of the woods, I loved it, was a bit honeycombed in the middle like the stuff inside a crunchie. Would love to know if you can get it now, but as you say is probs impossible.
Its easy to get here in Glasgow, the pound shops sell it in bags. I have also seen it in Home Bargains. It is lethal, if you have crowns!
We used to be able to buy a cone of paper with the scrappings from the bottom of the sweet jars. If you were lucky you might find a whole sweet! I always thought they were called police bags but were in fact called penny piece bags.