Favourite sweet - probably if you’re over 40

[AnotherDrearyDayInParadise]

DP & I have just been reminiscing about 1/2p sweets & sweets in the 70s in general.
Favourites were :
Black Jacks
Rosy apples
Fruit Salads

Bars of highland toffee that you had to break into pieces

@MissLadyM - No, not Toffos. A pp has mentioned those earlier and I remember them. Flavoured toffees. The sweets I recall were in the same size packets and same size sweets but they were hard, like boiled sweets . The ones with the centre more texture of chocolate limes.

Ooh I love chocolate limes - and lemon bonbons. I used to have a Saturday job and each week would buy I pack of lemon bonbons in the shop I worked and eat them all on the bus on the way back.

I'm now in my 50's with really bad teeth!

It had a small solid/filled-in bit at the top which you were supposed to bite off and then reveal the hollow interior making it into a straw.

Well how did you know you had to bite the end off?🤔
Why did I not know this? Why did nobody tell me? Whyyyyyyy? 😭😭😭

I remember those sweets too Apples but have no clue what the were called and yes they were wrapped in a greaseproof type wrapper.

Oh yes I have so many fillings! I ate far too many sweeties when I was a child.
Anyone else?

HanknPat. Wow! All those years I spent licking the sherbet off the stick when I could have been hoovering it up with the straw. I feel so cheated now.

Howzaboutye all my molars were filled by the time I was in my teens ☹️. My parents didn’t bother about the amount of sweets we ate and my DBROs ‘ and I stopped off every day at the newsagents on the way home from school. Their teeth are as ruined as mine.

@kittensand cake - yes yes the liquorice thing was a straw

& at @thecreosotekid - they were straws , not sure how we knew but they just were

Sweetie cigarettes.

"Well how did you know you had to bite the end off?"

I can't remember, KittensAndCake. Either I was told by one of my parents or a more experienced Sherbet Fountain eater amongst my peers ... or I was just greedy enough to bite the top off anyway and then discovered it was a straw

""Well how did you know you had to bite the end off?""

i agree , Peers.

There was always someone who knew how to deal with Sherbet Fountains. Can't remember how I learned it but we all just knew. Osmosis ?

The Sherbert Fountain connoisseurs obviously didn't live round my way - we had to make do with dipping and licking ☹️

Sweetie cigarettes.

Yes - I used to love those. Can't imagine why they don't make them any more....

I used to be crazy about the orangey-coloured boiled sweets call Lun Jeelers - does anybody remember them? I believe they were originally called Lung Healers, but they had to change the name slightly as technically, they couldn't actually be 100% proven to do what they claimed

Do others remember those little metal yellow box sweet dispensers on the front of shops? I recently caught an old repeat of a Desmonds episode (Yeh, Man!) and almost squealed with nostalgic delight to see that they had one on the front of the shop! In the days before 24-hour opening and sweets being on sale everywhere, it was like a kid's dream come true being able to buy sweets even though the shop had closed! They were probably contemporary with those massive charity collecting boxes in the shape of a disabled child.

Also, does anybody else remember the old-fashioned white Nestle chocolate vending machines that you only ever saw at railway stations? They were 20p each, when I remember them from - you put 2 x 10ps in the slot (either 20ps hadn't been released then or the machines hadn't been converted if they had), chose one from 4 or 5 options and had to pull an extremely stiff drawer out (it was always helpful to have a friend who could pull on your shoulders at the same time to gain extra strength and purchase) on the top of which your bar of chunky, solid, perfectly square chocolate would be lying. I loved those - I was so irrationally sad when they were replaced practically overnight with those big purple Cadbury ones that used soft buttons and electronics rather than mechanics and brute force. Still, I'd much rather have a proper Cadbury's Caramel from those times than any product that they make now.

The man in our local sweet shop never gave change under 5p - he would just grab some random penny sweets (yes, they actually did cost a penny then) to the value and thrust them at you. Problem was, he always chose the nasty ones (probably lots left unsold). An adult me thinks back and wonders why I didn't just anticipate him and choose the remaining 4 sweets myself before tendering my purchase!

sweetie cigarettes I think they are called candy sticks now and they don't have the red bit on the end.

Gosh I remember those sweetie cigarette things. Astonishing . It will go down as one of those things which my Ds will say " How was that ever allowed ? " Along with ( off point but ....) How did you manage with only 3 television channels and one of them went off air in the afternoon
and " Do you mean to tell me , mother , you only had 2 telephones in the house and they were fixed to the wall so you had to stand where the telephone actually was" "Yes" "Well that was a bit rubbish" - Yup but what we had. Though we did have Sherbet Fountains and Sweetie cigarettes , so , swings and roundabout

@WebuiltThisBuffettOnSausageRoll - I am so old I remember the chocolate vending machines on the Tube platforms when I was at university. I recall once ( and once only - doing a circle line pub crawl where some stations you had to get out and have a drink in a pub , but get back at same station) At one point some bright spark decided you had to exit the train , get a chocolate bar out of the vending machine and get back in again , all between the doors opening and closing. I think we lost a few with the latter

@BasiliskStare