1960's Sweet Shop
The Cornershop of earthly delights!
How to describe those hallowed temples of childhood delight? After all, they weren’t architectural icons, they weren’t of monumental significance, by and large they were converted houses on mundane, everyday post war housing estates. What started as 2/3 up and 2/3 down habitations holding small, working-class families, metamorphosed into something quite different. From a closed, private space and the folded arms of privacy, into the open arms of invitation … “Enter”. However, it was not what was on the outside, it was what lay inside that counted. When you did enter, you were entering a cocoon, a contained space that wrapped around you, a space that, despite the temperature, was perpetually and protectively warm, you were entering the sweet shop.
Typically, the ease of build conversion was a knock-through jobby in a functional terrace (no planning requirements here methinks). It was, more often than not, on the corner of two throughfares, perhaps engineered to capture the footfall from a wider range of eager children. I use the word “children” advisedly as it seemed that “sweets” were a predominant playground for the young. Whether this was a “money” thing, and not having much of it meant that my mum and dad felt that they couldn’t waste their pennies on what might be deemed self-indulgence, or whether it was a cultural thing, I’m not sure. Of course, mum and dad may have spent many delightful moments savouring the delights of a chocolate bar or boiled sweets out of sight of their envious, mithering children. Looking back, I feel that this may have applied to mum and less so to dad, who liked his ciggies and beers.
So, back to the converted front room of the corner shop, for that’s what it was. Bell on the door rattling loudly as we pushed through, jostling aggressively for position as if there was a limited offering of goodies inside and the fear of “not getting” was uppermost in our minds, (FOMO as it’s now termed). You might think that one of the most striking things about the shop would have been the smell. You might think that the air would be thick with sweetness, that your olfactory senses would be at the same time, overwhelmed, agitated and excited … but, truth be told, I can remember nothing about the smell, nothing at all. I could fabricate something poetic but that’s not the point, this is about remembrance. What I do recall though, is colour!
You must remember that this was before the all-illuminating power of the strip light, no neon here! There were probably one or two lights hanging from the ceiling. The daylight had trouble fighting its way past the stacked, post war shelves occupying the window space, but on a sunny summer’s day, when the sun was still powerful, as we raced out of school and into the shop with innocent glee, the light found its way through the narrow gaps between what seemed like huge jars of sweeties. Half full containers of blackcurrant and liquorice chews, parma-violets, flavoured bonbons (a hint of the exotic …oooh la francais!), sugared almonds and jelly babies, gobstoppers, cola bottles and white mice, they were all there … clamouring for our attention. Where it couldn’t flow past the jars, the light tried its luck passing through them, projecting a confection of pastel hues around the relatively small (by now crowded), interior. This small, front-room space was now a kaleidoscopic pageant of colour, shape and form. Jars of Sherbet lemons and pear drops, chocolate limes, pink shrimp and flying saucers, lit up, shouting for our pennies. Black jacks, fruit salads, humbugs and barley sugars stood to our attention in neat, well-ordered, regimental rows.
An aside: As a young 8-year-old boy, my older brother (Tony) and I went for classical guitar lessons provided by an old gentleman teacher who lived about half a mile from our house. We were taught in a very small shed to the rear of his house, at the bottom of his garden. He was a fairly strict instructor, and, after the initial excitement at learning something new, he gradually squeezed the enjoyment out of the process and it became a weekly chore, something to dread.
What made it worse was that, if we performed well, at the end of the lesson in that small, cramped shed, he would turn, bend over and reach down to a jar of barley sugars, extract a small handful and share them between Tony and my good self. “Not a problem” I hear you say, “A nice thing to do”! Agreed, except for the fact that, almost inevitably, his bending down was accompanied by a series of small farts. These bottom burps were never acknowledged, indeed Mr …. may not have known that he had “uttered” them. However, for a couple of small schoolboys, we had to avoid eye-contact with each other for fear of collapsing into hysterical, childish giggles. Inserting a Barley Sugar quickly into our gobs was a helpful strategy to delay the guffaws until we emerged from the shed and distanced ourselves from the small, now slightly warmer shed!
So, back to the sweets, the scene was set … but did we pause to appreciate the magical cocoon in which we found ourselves … no, there was more to see, and we were in a sugar rush! In front of the counter were the angled shelves loaded with the more “substantial” sweets. Fry’s, Cadbury’s, Rowntrees, Barratts and Mars had done their market research (not sure if it was called that in the 60’s), and we were faced with an array of tubes, bars, blocks and bouquets of goodies. Milky ways, Mars bars, Toffo, and Toffee Crisp, Caramac, Kit-Kat, Crunchie and Curly-Wurly … bright reds, vivid yellows, neon pinks, bold typing … Bubble-gum, Bazookas, Mingles and mints, jostling for attention with Aztecs and Opals. There were even sweets that you could wear, smoke or communicate with … Candy necklaces, sweet cigarettes, and Love Hearts, they were there in front of us … all of the sweets!
We jostled for the attention of the apron-frocked shopkeeper, eager eyes and outstretched hands loaded with threepence, fourpence, or even sixpence (if we’d been good!). The choices made were not random, we had both purpose and intention in our choices. We all had our favourites and thankfully, they were not the same. For me, anything with caramel took priority, and within that category, the most highly prized was … “soft” caramel – golden cup, Rolo, Mars Bars, and to a lesser extent, the caramel biscuit combo … e.g. Bar Six and Munchies.
For the sake of context and perspective, I would not want you to leave you with the impression that I was simply an open mouth (with certain preferences), willing to ingest anything “sweet”. Deep in the pit of my stomach there were limits, there were unconsumables when it came to sweet shop fare. There were untouchables, sweets (if you could call them that) whose very appearance repulsed my young lips – Fisherman’s friends and Bourneville (the horror show of chocolate). Dark chocolate was anathema to me. It’s interesting how age has mellowed my palate and, in my middle,/older age, it is dark chocolate that has become my option of choice.
Having rushed in, we ambled out, chewing, sucking, licking, probably more focused than we had been all day, our minds set on eking out the pleasure for as long as possible. The faint whispers of “head over heart” were simply that …whispers, and the Freudian “id” (I want it and I want it now), ruled the moment. There were some of our group who were able to work through their bounty (not a pun), with more patience and decorum, but they were then pestered by the choc-smeared, sugar-rushed rabble (of which I was a founder member!) … gimme, gimme, gimme.
Au-revoir …
The 1960’s sweet shop, probably very similar to the 1950’s and 1970’s sweet shop. Less so to the 1980’s sweet shop, markedly different to the ‘90’s shop, and slowly, inexorably, as we moved from the slow-trot 60’s into the fast lane that is the here and NOW!, the realm of sugar-coated, corner shop emporia has become a thing of the past. By and large, they are now viewed as curiosity shops relocated to vacant slots on nostalgia street. Farewell, such wonderful memories, a marker of a generation … I miss you. x