I saw a packet of fruit Polos in the shop yesterday. I knew the name of course and tried to remember if they might be the same as the ones I used to buy as a child. They didn’t look the same, but then nothing does. Anyway I was feeling reckless so I bought them. They cost 47p or 49p. Shock has made me forget. I was still thinking of long ago so nearly ten bob seemed a huge amount of money for a little packet of sweets!
Anyway… Dawson’s the newsagents was one of ‘the shops’.
“Pop to the shops for me?” or
“Go to the shops and pay the papers please”, or
“Get out from under my feet, go and see is there any bread in the shops for me?”
This was mum of course.
Anyway, I digress (Oh no Ronnie Corbett has popped into my head) No, don’t go there!
Dawson’s.
The shop was not very big, either that or it was, and was over stuffed with stock. For the sake of the memory the shop was square.
The brown wooden framed doors, only one of which was ever open, are in the middle of the bottom of the square, they are glazed but covered in posters and ‘wanted’ or ‘for sale cards’. It cost 3d a week to advertise your bunnies or kittens or children bikes.
The wooden floor makes a tap tap noise under the ladies’ heels.
Straight in front of me, to the left is the small low counter on top of which is the biggest heaviest book I ever saw in my whole life. It was where I had to go to pay the paper bill.
Filthy hands, this way and that way turn the great heavy pages until they find our address. In exchange for mums bit of money I am handed the tiniest slip of dirty paper and I am expected to look after it and hand it over to mum!
Along the counter to my right is where I have to queue for dad’s cigs. While I am being ignored by the shopkeeper chatting to the grown ups, I look at the posh boxes of chocolates high up on the shelves behind him. Oh they looked so beautiful, couldn’t I just sell my soul for a box of Milk Tray? Under my nose are all the expensive bars of chocolate, Cadburys Dairy Milk, Fruit and Nut, Whole Nut, I don’t see any more, way out of my league, which is probably why.
“Ten Embassy please and a box of matches” “thank you”
At last, errands done I turn to my right and face the right hand side of the shop.
Right under my nose are Bounty, Crunchie, Mars bars, Flake (my favourite) The smell of the chocolate is heavenly. This is where the Polos are! Both mint and fruit and Spangles!
Who remembers Spangles?
On the shelves behind the counter were the jars of sweets that you bought by the twopenneth! Oh where has that come from? I can hear my dad asking for them…
My favourite from the jars were either the violets, were they crystallised? No I don’t remember them being sugary, perhaps you will help me? or those tiny little fruit balls, oh I just can’t remember their name!
Pears, I remember pears.. no more though.
I have to wait here patiently because there are other kids from the street peering into the big tall glass fronted cabinet that held the kind of sweets that I could afford. Penny chews, black jacks, fruit salad, sherbet dabs, lucky dips, liquorice, round and very hard candy lollies on a white stick, shrimps, candy cigarettes with the little red bit on the end!
No wonder all the kids smoked, OMG it started with a sweetie…
Still waiting and thinking about great long red laces, flying saucers, gob stoppers! They have a gorgeous aniseed bit in the middle.
Mum loves the liquorice dipped into sherbet…Oh what will I choose?
“6 fruit salads please”
I turn around to my right to leave and notice over on the other side of the shop where all the magazines and newspapers were kept, a bunch of kids looking at a magazine and giggling.
“Put that down! get out of the shop” the shopkeeper yelled. The kids are long gone before he gets to clip their ears.
There are always grown ups hanging around looking at the magazines. Us kids were never allowed to look at anything, or even wait by the papers!
Now, come back early tomorrow morning before school, then it would be a different story. We would all be there elbowing each other to get at the papers for our paper rounds…
It is many many many, years since I went to the shops for my mum but the packet of fruit Polos took me right back inside the shop.
Fortunately I had the presence of mind to take photo before I ate them all.
Yes they still tasted the same, particularly the orange one.
Perfumes and flavours have a very powerful effect on me, they can take me right back…
I bet my brother on the Island could add to my memory and to my list of sweeties in Dawson’s.
What sweet shop memories do you have?
