The Sweets and Tobacconist Shop

Because of all the chasing about for work there's not been a great deal of scanning going on recently.

Yesterday though I came across a few shots from 1980 when Mum and Dad had a sweets and tobacconist's shop on Common Edge Road, Blackpool. I'd taken a few shots inside the shop and looking at them now brings a few memories back!

That's the me of thirty years ago, helping to re-stock the shelves with chocolate and sticky sweets! There's a closer look in a moment for those of you who want to spot any discontinued lines and brands!

You can have similar moments of nostalgia if you are a smoker with this display of long since disappeared cigarettes.

I gave up smoking in 1976 when Fran was pregnant with Gill. Cigarettes had anyway risen in cost and were somewhere around 30 pence a packet. By 1980 they have risen to the ridiculous heights of between 65 and 75 pence per packet of 20. That's four years to double in price. Blimey... They must be over five pounds a packet now!!! (and indeed...!)

My old favourite brand of Players No.6 can be found on the shelves still, accompanied by the king-sized version that I occasionally smoked.

Fran stands behind the ice cream counter. A favourite spot of her own Dad, Bob, when he was alive. It was, I have to admit, an intensely entertaining spot for a fella to stand as all the women and girls came in their low cut summer tops and bent over to search for their block of Walls Cornish or Neapolitan, affording a generous view of their tutti fruities... I made a point of staring at the ceiling of course...

A closer look at the confectionery shelves. At the bottom left a box of Tudor Crisps (remember them!!!) can be seen. Lots of still-familiar chocolate bars there but Snickers are still called Marathon and I'm not sure that Star-Bar and Take2 are still going.

The biggest change has been in boxes of chocolates. Spartan hard centres and Contrast are no longer with us for instance.

It always amused us that people would leave buying Christmas presentation boxes and Easter Eggs until the very last minute on Christmas Eve or Easter Sunday and then complain if we had sold out. Why would we want to have some left?!?

Ah well... another slice of the past there.

Large versions of the photos: me, cigarettes, Fran, chocs!

Spangles!

By heck! These were a staple part of my diet as a schoolboy! I wasn't keen on the lime flavour and don't actually think I'd ever seen a lime at that point. Lime was something you had in a lemon and lime drink or was a ghastly threat in a bottle of Robinson's lime cordial. Why a lime Spangle is being held out as though it were the best is beyond me! Orange and strawberry were my favourites.

How about you?

A big thanks to Bruce Seaton for reminding me about these!

Don't Forget The Fruit Gums, Mum

Are these still going? I have a feeling they might be actually. Unlike many of the sweets I enjoyed as a child.

Some of them just changed name - like Marathon becoming the slightly disturbing Snickers, or Opal Fruits (didn't like them - they used to make my mouth water...) becoming Starburst. A snazzier name it may be but Opal Fruits described them better and even after however many years it's been I can still remember the song...

"Opal Fruits made to make your mouth water
Fresh with the tang of citrus
Four refreshing fruit flavours
Orange, Lemon, Lime, Strawberry..."

Ooh ah... Come on now, admit it... how many of you were singing along? How many people can sing the Starburst song??? Is there even a Starburst song?

And whatever happened to Spangles, Tiffin, sweet cigarettes and a stick of licorice in a quarter pound of kay-li? Or Space Dust from the 1970s - now that was a surprise, the first time I tried it!

Anyway, Fruit Gums! Remember the satisfaction when your teeth finally met in the middle of one?

Sweets For My Sweet

We had a run out to Lancaster the other day. I don't know, I just had a rush of blood to the head or something...

It was a bit of a flying visit and more to look for something in the market than anything else, but I couldn't resist taking a photo of the old-fashioned sweets shop with the jars of sweets in the window.

So what were your favourites? I loved sour apples and cola cubes! Oh, and... hang on, where's Fran gone...? Sheesh! Wouldn't you know? Went in to buy some and had the shopkeeper fishing her favourites out of a jar of mixed assortments... Oh the shame...

Large version of the photo: sweet shop