h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Milk bottles. What on earth were they made from and flavoured with? They were kind of a gum I guess, white, opaque, in the shape of half a milk bottle split lengthways, with a taste.... vanilla maybe? I dunno. I loved 'em though, and at 10d a quarter I could buy 2oz quite easily (anything a shilling a quarter and over was out of my range). There were lots of good sweets in jars - Kola Kubes, pips (orange, lemon, spearmint), pear drops, acid drops, raspberries and blackberries.
My cousins in Lancashire called them Lucky Bags, but in London they were Jamboree Bags. A small paper bag which cost 4d, and contained a handful of small sweets, like swizzels but harder, a lollipop, two caramels, and a small toy.
I believe you can still get Swizzels lollies - a hard (as concrete) two-coloured lollipop made of sugar paste, slightly bigger than a gobstopper which lasted forever because you couldn't bite into them without the risk of severe dental damage. You just had to suck and suck and suck....
And speaking of lasting forever, Everlasting Strips were a long (about 9" I guess) piece of very weird tasting and dark coloured toffee which didn't last anywhere near as long as a Swizzels lolly and cost 1d more.

They were called Lucky Bags up here in the northeast as well. I used to scrap Swizzles lillies with my front teeth, you got a sort of sherbety powder in your mouth. I still do sometimes, they are still around on Tyneside.

Sorry, that 'scrap' was meant to say scrape, obviously.

Milk bottles are still in existance, and are being sold by Bassetts (I think.)
I had a pack last Friday

I'd sell my firstborn for a pack of those... except I don't have a firstborn... how about a Hershey's Peanut Butter Cup?

A what?

Did I say Hershey's? I meant Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. A shallow chocolate cup, about 1 1/2" in diameter, filled with smooth peanut butter, and sealed with more chocolate. I'm sure there's a British sweet that looks like a RPBC, but I can't bring it to mind right now. However, there is a place on the web you can see a picture of one if you go to Google (Legal note - there are other search engines) and do a search on Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

I'm still adicted to sherbert fountains, and eat bon bons in the noiseiest lickiest way posible... and does anyone remember the bubble gum which smelt and tasted like hospitals?
Came with a free crappy tatoo?
hxx

I can vouch for that love of Sherbet Fountains, and yes the way she eats Bon Bons is NOISIER and LICKIER than a very noisy licky thing.

I don't remember the bubble gum (or bubbly as it was known around my way) smelling like hospitals, but then I never chewed it. I do remember the crappy tattoos, though.

I am I the only person whose mother told him that bubble gum would wrap round your guts and strangle your insides?! I still can't touch the stuff, just in case.

Hmmm..... I think I recall my mother telling me that it would wrap around my heart and kill me. Even at that age, I knew a thing or two about human biology, and I could never work out how on earth the chewy could get from your stomach to your heart. The things our parents told us Man, that's a whole nother entry!

Yeah, an entry on the lies parents tell!, No my mum just said it would stick in my stomach and swell up and give me wind, it looked common, and was a filthy disgusting habit. Frequently.

Well, of course, everyone knows that if you unscrew your belly button, your bum falls off...... doesn't it?
Goshoogoshoogosh, 45 years old, still believing stuff like that, never swallowing chewing gum or unscrewing *anyone's* belly button

the thing with this is i remember the was a whole hoohar about these as some ones that were being sold were found to actually be impregnated with drugs. this was in the mid eighties. blue tattoos i think

I vaquely remember something about in the news, wasn't it LSD?

the chewing gum i don't remember the name of that tasted like hospitals... i thought it tasted like the smell of germolene ointment

Do they still sell loose Uncle Joe's Mint Balls? They had a soft crust with a hard centre and were slightly aniseedy.
Fruit Salads and Black Jacks 4 for a penny.The liquorice pinwheels with a round hundreds and thousands - covered jelly in the centre.
Jubblies,frozen ,a 3-d triangular juice drink,orange and a nice lime flavour.Ice pops,Plasic -coated day glo coloured frozen liquid that you sucked from the plastic after biting the top off....happy days!

Fruit salad and pink sugar prawns,midget gems,sports mixtures,5boys choc from the machine when the shop was closed,flat bubblegum with photo cards of the Fab Four,penny bars of Cadbury's(about 1" x 5")wrapped in purple and silver foil.