Taste nostalgia. Good or bad thing?

Weren't Pontefract cakes just round discs of liquorice? My Yorkshire granny used to buy them for us...

Ana - yes they were. A relative passed them off to us kids as 'sweets' now and then. They were not my favourite.

We have a retro sweetie shop here. I think there are quite a few of them now. The GC bought OH some sweeties for Christmas. I tried a flying saucer and a couple of Love Hearts. Still lovely and chalky. Can you still buy Parma Violets?

nonu, there were Kunzle Cakes in Scotland in the 50s. We used to have a toffee bar with a picture of a highland cow on the wrapper. I can't remember what it was called, but it was delicious. Useful, too, when we had teeth about to come out...

Cadburys used to make a peppermint cream bar, dark chocolate, filled with runny peppermint cream, in a really pretty shade of green, mmmm, lovely! And when I was a child, we didn`t get chocolate selection boxes at Christmas, ours were Eubanks liquorice selection boxes, and they were great. I still love liquorice, and sherbet to dip it in.

absent the liquorice allsorts you mention are known as horse cakes in my part of the country.

Oh yes, and Terry`s Neapolitans, not made anymore, I classed them as a luxury item chocolatewise.

Raspberry ruffle bars were my craving when expecting DD, I ate that many of them I was sure she would have a sweet tooth, I must have sickened her before birth as she never eats sweets.
Jap desserts were my favourite sweet but I didn't get many because sweets were still rationed when I was little. I think we also got little sweets, in a box, called fruit capris if I remember correctly they were very tangy.

When food was rationed, my mother used to take us from South Shields, on the ferry to North Shields. She would take bags of sugar to Welch's Toffee factory and trade the sugar for sweets. Denise Welsh the actress, is part of the Welch toffee family.

Lucky Bags. My sister always had the better bag. Sweet Cigarettes.

I lived in the Midlands at the height of a polio epidemic and we were given polio vaccinations not drops. I can remember leaving the hall where the injections were given and my mother opening a newspaper parcel to produce lots of misshapen sweet cigarettes.

Perhaps this was why I used to smoke between 30 and 40 a day and why I got fat - comfort eating and smoking!

papa yes to the bits of batter: we used to call them scrumps. We used to pay fourpence for ours, though. And bread and dripping too, for Sunday tea.

I can't believe now that sugar sandwiches were the norm. And chips (practically every meal) were cooked in lard, which seemed to last for years in the same pan.

And those sweet cigarettes! You can still get them, but no longer cigarette-shaped. I also seem to recall brown ones too. And sherbet layered in different colours. Those were the days..

Not in the same league I think but when I first bought a tin of baby prunes and custard it brought back so many memories. I then proceeded to buy one for baby and two for me. It isn't the same now, I did have a sneaky taste when my grandson was a baby.

My best friend of almost 60 years remembers me buying something on the way to school at lunchtimes (I was given thruppence to buy sweets - hence all the fillings) It was, and I quote, a long brown bendy sweet which she thinks must have tasted of chocolate (apparently I never shared that particular sweet with her so she has fantasised about it ever since) Anyone know what on earth it was/is

I love sweet tobacco but it gets stuck between my teeth now.

Anno it was called McCowan's Highland Toffee and we could also buy a Penny dainty, a small individual toffee.

Forgotten about Jap Deserts and Kunzle Cakes. DH still buys Raspberry Ruffles, pink and white Coconut Ice, Macaroon Bars, Soor Plooms ,and Cinnamon Balls. Coconut Ice and Macaroon Bars are easy to make, as is Tablet.

Ah Agus,you have just reminded me of buying penny caramels from the penny tray at the local shop,we could ask for the penny tray,the tuppeny tray or the thruppeny tray,took me ages to choose from all the sweets on offer.

Oh, what pleasure your sweet memories have brought back! But let's move on. What's your favourite biscuit? Custard creams? Bourbons? Do you remember the tins of broken biscuits at the grocer, and being told off for picking out all the chocolate and cream bits. Were Wagon Wheels really bigger in the old days? Could you nibble all the chocolate off a Tunnocks teacake just leaving the marshmallow? Was there a second walnut deep inside a Walnut Whip? Don't seem to remember chocolate wholemeals in the old days, but do remember Huntley & Palmers milk and honey sandwich biscuits - delicious!

papaoscar (and others) I think you would enjoy a book called 'A nice cup of tea and a sit down'. Every biscuit you can think of is described with enthusiasm and beguiling humour.

Sweets were rationed when I was small; I remember going to buy a paper with my father, the smell of the newsagent's shop and coming home with a bar of Cadbury's milk chocolate.

And bread and dripping - I loved that so much.

paposcar I loved spangles, particularly the Old English variety and yes the Walnut Whip had a walnut half inside the base. The chocolate was so thick it was difficult to bite through.

Baubles - I'd completely forgotten about Old English Spangles and am glad that my memory of the second walnut inside the whip was right. Many thanks.

I really miss Spangles papaoscar They had a nice selection of flavours so you could buy a packet to suit your mood, I remember the Old English, peppermint, Blackcurrant and the assorted fruit ones. Much nicer than most of the stuff now.
My mother used to buy Kunzle cakes as a treat but I didn't really like them. My favourites were the fondant fancies, although the blob of cream on the top was a lot bigger than you get today.
I must have got through hundreds of sweet cigarettes but never smoked real cigarettes because, sadly, they tasted of tobacco not sugar! Also they were much more expensive - 4/6 for ten!!!

Deedaa - Rowntrees fruit pastilles or gums any help?

My mother often bought Nice biscuits to have with her coffee and always insisted they were pronounced niece, my favourite was a bourbon

Wagon Wheels are much smaller. OH loves them and is most annoyed.
Mum used to buy us broken biscuits from Woolworths. My late Mother-in-law used to buy dented tins of various because they were cheaper. Some cans were also without their labels so you never knew what you were opening. Baked beans and custard anyone?

Penguin paperback - glad to know somebody else has noticed the shrinking wagon wheel. On the subject of broken biscuits, much later in life when I was travelling round the country, I discovered a really huge biscuit factory in Uttoxeter where they made everybody's biscuits. They had a vast factory shop where you could buy enormous bags of all sorts of biscuits and offcuts at knockdown prices. That was about 20 years ago. I can't remember the name of the factory but am very glad, calorie-wise, that I'm no longer near it!

On the subject of labels, my old dad used to take the labels off tins and do the competitions. He won many prizes, but the down side was that the sticky labels he put back on the tins came off, so it became a 'Russian roulette' as to whether you got custard or curry, pilchards or prunes. We were not impressed!

After reading these posts, I was discussing wagon wheels with my DH last night (yes I know sad or what!). I said 'are they smaller or is it just that we are bigger?' We agreed that they are definitely smaller