I was
never a great lover of the Spangle, which I think only came in two
flavours, Fruit and Old English. Old English was a taste as peculiar
as the name by the way. I'm still not sure what the taste was
supposed to be. These sweets were the staple diet of old ladies, the
type that offered children sweets out in the street without the fear
of the police and social services paying them a visit. These old
ladies would produce a sweet from their cavernous coat pockets, rub
you on the head, then insist that you ate one of their sweets, which were never in their original packets. Some of these sweets, I'm sure,
saw action during the second world war!
That's
the strange thing about nostalgia; once something has gone, it becomes
very appealing. Think about people on diets - they crave cream buns,
yet when they are not on diets, they are not bothered? I know people who claim their school days were the best days of their lives, yet
they bunked off school at every opportunity.
Going
back to the sweets, I used to love cough candy when I was a kid, athough we called them cough sweets. I know you can still buy this, but
I don't like it now. But a few years ago, when my father was diagnosed
as having terminal cancer and not having long to live, my older
brother, John, and I took Dad to Ireland to do the roots thing.
Before we set off, I had gone shopping with my wife and had found an
old fashioned sweet shop that sold all the old favourite sweets such
as sherbet pips, apple tarts, cola cubes and hundreds more. I noticed
a jar full of what used to be my favourite sweets, 'voice tablets'.
Why these sweets are called this is beyond me, as they are nothing
more than flavouring and sugar and I would imagine they'd do more damage
than good to your voice if you happened to be a boy soprano. Luckily
for me, I don't fall into this category, my voice is more 'obscene
phone call' than soprano. I was so pleased to see these sweets and,
knowing of my long drive around Ireland, I promptly bought 2lb (a kilo)
of these sweets.
We set
off a day later on our journey and my father, who loved his sweets,
noticed the rather large bag of sweets in the front of the car and
promptly asked if he may have one. I handed them back to him without
thinking and carried on driving. A few hours later, while driving
through Wales on the way to the ferry, I asked my Dad to pass me one
of the sweets to which he replied, “what sweets?”
“The
voice tablets” I replied, feeling the need for a sugar rush.
“I
can't” he replied quietly.
My
heart sunk as he said this, as he was very ill at the time and I
genuinely thought some sort of paralysis had set in with him.
“Why can't you pass them?” I replied, trying to control my emotions.
“Because
I've eaten them all” he answered.
With
this all my concern for his health disappeared, “You greedy
bastard, There was 2lb of sweets in that bag, how the fuck have you
eaten so many sweets in such a short time? They were supposed to last
the whole journey!”
“I
love voice tablets, they remind me of my childhood!”
“Don't
tell me that Nona bought you 2lb of voice tablets when you were a
kid?”
"No she
didn't, but had she have done I probably wouldn't have eaten all your
sweets now!”
He then
spent the rest of the holiday sitting in the back of the car, chuckling to
himself like a naughty schoolboy. He regaled every one we met about
his Dennis the Menace type raid on my sweet bag.
That is
why we should bring back spangles, because they are a throwback to happy
times long gone. As for me, I would buy the whole shops stock of
voice tablets just to have that time back again with my brother and
my father travelling around Ireland. Those sweets for me will forever
be a symbol of that time.
I used to love cough candy when I was a kid
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