Lollipop

Today

Walking around North Lane in Brighton today, Liz became very excited at seeing Cyber Candy. It's actually a sweet shop but with items from the more obscure end of the market. "I can never remember where it is," said the delighted Liz "I always seem to find it by mistake."

The girls went in and were soon saying things like "Ooh, I remember those" "I used to love those". And so on. It was rather bizarre, hearing the girls talking nostalgically about their favourite childhood sweets like a couple of old 'uns.

The shop sold Pez, complete with dispensers, obscure flavours of Kit Kat and chocolate covered insects. The packs of insects, having reassured doubters that there were real insects inside, went on to inform you that the contents did not contain significant amounts of protein, fat or other nutrients. As if your reason for eating them was all that luscious locust meat inside.

In My Day

We used to have 6d a week pocket money and there was no restriction on spending it all on sweets. On Sunday mornings we used to walk down to Wellsley Road Rec where there was a sweet shop. We bought sherbet lemons and penny chews.

I particularly remember the little sweets which looked rather like pieces of Italian Millefiore. I liked licorice sticks and clove sweets. We bought aniseed balls, gobstoppers and bubble gum (this last was always disappointing as I couldn't get it to bubble and it tasted like old rubber). We were allowed to eat rock on seaside visits and honeycomb, candy floss and toffee apples, when we went to fairs. No wonder so many of my teeth are now made of porcelain.

I certainly remember Pez appearing in the shops. I think we were older by this time; but, even so, buying the dispensers felt like a big outlay and it was always a worry when the little spring broke.

We certainly couldn't afford chocolate, which only made an appearance at Easter, St Nicholas's night and Christmas, or if Mamma was given Black Magic as a gift (toffee and Montelimar for me, please).

At Cyber Candy what we were all agreed on was to give the chocolate covered insects a miss.