'Addictive' Sweets?

I remember sweet cigarettes which I loved but didn't like the tobacco as I did not like coconut (and still don't). Did the sweet cigarettes not lose the red tip and become candy sticks? I did smoke for a few years in my early twenties but I think that was peer pressure rather than early liking for sweets. I never really enjoyed it.

My DGC have 'children's wine' which is white or red grape juice or apple juice, on special occasions. Again I think that peer pressure is likely to have a stronger effect on them than 'pretend' wine at this stage. I am willing to be corrected by a child psychologist though! As a family we are not frequent drinkers so surely that too must have an impact. Interesting topic.

lyndiloo
I remember those cigarettes. We used to get them from the ‘penny tray’. You got four sweets for a penny. I think the shopkeeper used to open the different packets and mix them up. That wouldn’t be allowed now either.
I also remember buying a quarter pound of various sweets from big jars. They were weighed and then put in pointed conical bags.

I was also given raisin wine to drink at Christmas by my Grandpa from a little liqueur glass, which I still have. I think what I learned from that was that drinking alcohol was a grown up thing to do at meal times on special occasions. . It hasn’t led to a life of excess.

Personally if I were your DD I’d be more concerned about the Ribena than the wine glass.

I also ate the sweet cigarettes with the red end. Must have eaten quite a lot of them as can still remember the taste and sucking them till they got very thin. There was another type too - a stick of chocolate covered in cigarette paper. They looked more like the “real thing”, but more expensive.

Eating these didn’t make me a smoker though! I agree with janea that I’d be more concerned with the Ribena than the glass.

When my daughter was 18 months old, she drank from a yoghurt cup - a thick brown liquid (remains of thinned down wood sealer) (handed to our by her 3 year old brother, and with two adults nearby)

When we got to the hospital emergency department, one of the first things the medics said was Never put anything dangerous or toxic in a familiar container !

She was fine (she had taken but a sip but was kept in for observation) but I obviously have never forgotten the fright it gave us. Nor the lesson.

(Oops, meant to start off the post above with "Slightly off topic, but ...")

I remember when those cigarettes and tobacco were everyday sweets. I also remember getting a flat box of them one Christmas like a proper 'posh' box of cigarettes - no one I know seems to have seen those. We also used to get a box of liquorice shapes which included a pipe with red embers on it.

Grannyknot when my eldest son was 2 he dipped a cup into a bowl of bleach water in the sink and drank it - I was 8 months pregnant at the time, no phone, no car so had to run all the way to the hospital with him in his pushchair where they pumped his stomach. Never been so frightened - he was fine but it taught him (and me) a lesson we've never forgotten!

Also slightly off thread but I can't believe that sweets were still on ration when I was a child - they came off in 1953 when I was five!
I remember having both types of sweet cigarettes and the sweet tobacco. They didn't make me a smoker though!

Willow I do feel for you. I also still remember the fright. My daughter had ingested what she sipped, but thankfully it was only a sip.

She gave us more than one scare - she also ate a mushroom that had sprung up on the lawn, she was quick as a flash eating that. That was another hospital trip. Little tinker.

I remember those sweet cigarettes , I think the sweet thing got the better of me as I got older.
As a child , being near a US base locally parents had become friends with a service family.
And things like chocolate cakes homemade where thing to eat especially when on the plate.
That sweet tooth as led to diabetes 2, but hopefully borderline, but slight obese, but now loosing weight by cutting back on sugar related items, cravings still there.
Mick

I am another who liked the little packs of sweet cigarettes, and always had a chocolate “smokers set” in my Christmas stocking. Like Michael, I had a very sweet tooth as a child. I’ve never had any inclination to smoke, though. My daughter is another who will not allow GS’s place at the table to be set with a wine glass even if it is filled with his favourite apple and elderflower cordial.

WIllow500 I remember those licquorice pipes, loved them, and still do love licquorice, (it's good for you).
I also remember buying 'Spanish Wood', it was little twigs that you chewed.
My parents bought a sweet shop, after I had left home, and Dad would make paper cones for children's purchases, that were very popular.

I remember the sweet cigarettes as well and the conical bags we got our penny assortment in. Four fruit salads or black jacks for a penny, liquorice root, aniseed balls and so many others.
Seems a bit odd to complain about the ribena Lyndiloo when they buy pretend cocktails for her.

I am sure there was a chocolate shaped like a cigar, it was wrapped in gold paper with a red band round the middle. Or is that my imagination???lol

Cigarette smoke was one of the main triggers for my childhood migraine - but it never stopped me playing at smoking and eating those sweetie cigarettes. I am a non-smoker.

I think what sets the pattern of attitudes to smoking and drinking is family habits, not whether ribena is served in a wine glass or not.

When my DC were young, in our family, wine was drunk with special meals with the occasional sherry or gin in the evening or Sunday lunchtime when we had visitors. No one in the family drank to excess, nor ever 'needed' a drink.

That is what has formed their adult drinking habits, not the shape of the glass their cola was in.

My DH got very nostalgic about liquorice root recently so I got him some from a health food shop. He must have forgotten how strong his teeth were as a child because now he had to bash it with a rolling pin before he could chew it! He immediately decided it had been a bad idea, so now we have a bundle of liquorice root in the cupboard waiting to be thrown away!?

Good post MOnica.I totally agree.

Oh, I'd forgotten the licorice pipes with the red bobbles on, and the chocolate cigars! And the 'Spanish Wood' (which Greyduster calls Licorice Root) which would be your mouth for ages. Did we actually eat the wood, or just suck it?

P.S. What's wrong with Ribena?

I remember those chocolate cigars travelsafar. I think they had a fondant filling and were delicious.

I recollect, Lyndiloo that we chewed it to a mush but ingested the resulting juice (I suppose some of the fibres must have gone down too!). It’s supposed to be good for all sorts of things, including boosting your memory. Better get my teeth in then!

You can still get the cigarettes, they are called candy canes and come in a pack of 4 or 5 boxes from the supermarket. Not as good though, don’t have the red tip, and they just taste different. My brothers and I would have them on a frosty morning, so when you breathed out it looked like smoke !.

We gave our children “champagne “, on special occasions, it was fizzy grape juice I use to get from the health shop, it had a fancy label, and a wired cork, so they were really happy,

I was born in 54 ,rationing wasn't long stopped.The man in our corner shop used to keep all my favourites for me from I was about 9 months ,or so I'm told.I had sweetie cigarettes every day and liquorice comfits ,I've never even tried a real cigarette and I'm not a sweet lover at all.Except for tablet.If I make it for the GC I have to give them the whole batch away with them or I'd eat it myself

Addictive?
Overthinking!

I use to buy fake cigarettes as a child, I thought it was fun to see adult reaction. However, I have never had the desire to smoke the real thing.

I just got addicted to sweets. I've never smoked though.