A Tanner For The Olde Worlde Sweet Shop...
By Darkwing
@Darkwing (21583)
May 1, 2008 8:58pm CST
As I've got my new scales and have restarted my diet, I thought I would get you all thinking about the good old days when we were kids, and used to go to the Olde Worlde Sweet Shops with our threepenny joeys or our tanners for our sweet fix.
I was allowed sweets after school, but never more than a threepenny joey's worth, but at the weekend, I'd pop in with my pocket money and spend anywhere up to a shilling on sweets, before popping next door to the Newsagent's for my comics.
I would enter the shop and stand in awe of the rows and rows of glass jars full of all manner of sweets. There were all different colours... rhubarb and custard, lemon sherberts, milk bottles, chocolate drops, cholate limes, rainbow drops, sweet cigarettes, toffees... remember the Milk Maid toffees? Then, my eyes would drop to the plastic trays, with lots of little compartments in, holding blackjacks, fruit salad chews, love hearts, sherbert fountains, gobstoppers, banana, strawberry and plain toffee bars, aniseed balls, parma violets and liquorice wheels, to name but a few.
I always entered the shop unsure of which way to head first, but a tanner went a long, long way in those days, and the shopkeeper used to give us a little dish to put our sweets in, or weigh them from the jars, and then put them into a white, paper bag. Ahhhhhhh, I remember it well!
My favourites were black jacks, banana toffee bars and parma violets. So... come on, tell us your childhood fantasies... if I were to give you a tanner, what would you buy in the sweet shop? Would you pick an assortment of sweets from the plastic compartments or two ounces of sweets from a jar? What were your favourites?
Take a trip down memory lane with me!
5 people like this
7 responses
@sparkofinsanity (20471)
• Regina, Saskatchewan
2 May 08
I would spend my entire tanner on the gobsmackers!
When I was a kid, we didn't have the kind of stores you speak of where I lived. But in the summer when we went to our cottage, the small corner store at the bottom of the hill had jars on the counter with bubble gum balls (strictly forbidden to us by our mum), licorice in three flavors, and hard twist candy sticks. If mum was with us, we always choose the licorice and one hard twist candy stick. But if mum let us go on our own (oh happy day!) we would spend every penny on bubblegum balls and hide under the weeping pines to chew and blow and get gum all over each other! We always went back to mum covered in broken gum bubbles in our hair, on our fingers and shirts. She'd take one look, make us strip, get out the scissors, cut away the gum, and then make us go for a swim in the lake! We always went back to school in the fall with the weirdest hair cuts! LOL
2 people like this
@sparkofinsanity (20471)
• Regina, Saskatchewan
3 May 08
When I get to where you are Darkwing, we'll buy a whole white bag of our favorites - gobsmackers for me and purple violets for you and we'll roll ourselves down hills pretending we're the jars in the Shoppe! LOL I can hardly wait!
1 person likes this
@Lakota12 (42600)
• United States
2 May 08
not sure what a tanner is .
But when I was little I spent my 10 cents on a movie and popcorn.
Dont really remember a sweet shop our candy was in jars but in the mercitile store.When older I liked to buy coffee charms, and the real black licgrois.
They dont make it right any more sad!
I wasnt into many sweets but I do remember going to a soda shop and getting a lemon phasphate drink
2 people like this
@weemam (13372)
•
2 May 08
awee that wasn't fair lol , I am back on mine too pal , lost 10lbs so far , I tried not to read this post but had to lol , My favourite was penny caramels and McGowans Highland toffee and soor plooms, In saying that though I loved them all , that is why I am cuddly :) :) xxg
@Darkwing (21583)
•
2 May 08
Funnily enough, I didn't get cuddly as a kid. I suppose we burned off the calories more easily. Well done with your diet so far, by the way! I've lost twelve pounds so we're fairly even. Keep it up, my friend!
I liked quite a lot of the sweets in the sweet shop. I had to rotate them, but I was never without at least four blackjacks and my banana toffee. 
Milk bottles seemed to last a long time, because they were light and you got a lot in a two-ounce bag!
Brightest Blessings, my dear friend, and thank you for your contribution... even though you're on your diet again! xxx
Milk bottles seemed to last a long time, because they were light and you got a lot in a two-ounce bag!
Brightest Blessings, my dear friend, and thank you for your contribution... even though you're on your diet again! xxx1 person likes this
@Darkwing (21583)
•
2 May 08
That's a new one on me, my friend. I looked at a close up of your picture, for which, thank you very much, and it looks like a clear, hard candy? We have Fox's Glacier Mints, which are clear, and obviously a cool minty flavour, which seem to be similar to that but smaller.
Thank you for your contribution, my friend, and Brightest Blessings. xx
2 people like this
@raydene (9871)
• United States
3 May 08
I used to love spring time
because we had a sugarhouse
that friends owned so we got
to go alot at sugar time..
For those that are not familiar
sugaring is when maple syrup is made.
We used to love if we had a new snowfall
because that meant sugar on snow..
It was hot maple syrup poured over
fresh clean snow. It would freeze quickly and
it was like eating a maple ice pop..makes my mouth water!
xoxoxoxoxox
1 person likes this
@Darkwing (21583)
•
4 May 08
Wow... sounds good to me, my friend. I love Maple Syrup, but it isn't the same here. I bought some whilst in America, together with some of your pancake mix, because ours is quite different. Also, a friend sent me a care package one Christmas and included authentic American pancake mix and maple syrup! I'm so fathomable! 
She also included other things, but guess what meant the most? 
Brightest Blessings, my dear friend and thank you for your contribution. xxx
She also included other things, but guess what meant the most?
Brightest Blessings, my dear friend and thank you for your contribution. xxx
@wickedangel (1636)
• Dominican Republic
2 May 08
Oh goodness me, yes definitely a walk down memory lane! I used to love those sherbets and the black jacks and the liquorice. But then again I used to love smarties, wagonwheels and curlywurlies and those fingers of fudge! Yummy, my mouth is watering just thinking about this.... mustn't go to the shop for a while otherwise I will break the diet again!
Thank you for sharing this with us Darkwing!
1 person likes this
@Darkwing (21583)
•
2 May 08
Lol... there wasn't much we didn't like, I guess. Do you remember coconut chips? They were like slivers of pink and white coconut dipped in sugar... I loved those. Wagon Wheels, I used to buy in the school tuck shop, during the morning break, to have with my milk! Now, there's another thing, I've remembered! Those ickle bottles of milk, with a straw!
Brightest Blessings, my dear friend and thank you for your contribution. xx
Brightest Blessings, my dear friend and thank you for your contribution. xx1 person likes this
@GardenGerty (169449)
• United States
2 May 08
I do not have the same candy history as you do. I could use a quarter, $0.25 and get six five cent candies at the grocery store. There was a roll or tray of candy disks the size of a nickel, in a rainbow of pastel colors. I do not remember the flavors. They were called Starks. I liked Zero candy bars, and another one that I do not remember the name of. I liked Chickostix and Cherry Mash. I liked Banana Bikes (Beichs) a banana toffee like you mentioned. I liked M and M's. Sweet memories.
1 person likes this
@Darkwing (21583)
•
2 May 08
I guess candy, or sweets, differ from country to country, my friend. All yours sound mighty good though, especially the banana toffee. Ours used to come in a long, flattish, narrow bar, and it lasted for ages. It only cost a single penny, and was so tasty, that it was well worth the money.
Brightest Blessings, my friend, and thank you for your contribution. xx
1 person likes this
