Bah humbug to the woke brigade
AFTER one complaint, Marks & Spencer has changed the name of its Midget Gems to Mini Gems in order to be an ‘all-inclusive retailer’ (Mail). As the chairman and founder of Mr Simms Olde Sweet Shoppe and the great-grandson of a Lincoln sweet maker, I admit I don’t have a doctorate in confectionery. But I’ve worked in sweet shops from the age of 14 and spent more than 40 years in the game. I’ve seen many politically correct issues with the old-fashioned sweets on our shelves. Would sweet tobacco — chocolate dusted shredded coconut resembling little worms — encourage people to smoke? Commonly sold as Spanish Gold in the 1970s and packed in a gold pouch with a red ship on the front to resemble the loose tobaccos Golden Virginia and Old Holborn, this sweet has disappeared from our shelves. After a complaint from a customer about the Fairy Satins label on a jar, I pandered to his whims and changed the name to Satin Cushions. I hope this doesn’t offend his soft furnishings! Should we question the name Black & White, a traditional mint flavoured liquorice brick of contrasting layers, made in Pontefract? Stockleys Sweets, confectioners since 1918, made Invalid toffee, which was enjoyed by war veterans. It’s known today as Butter Crunch. When I was a child, there was nothing better than receiving a chocolate smokers’ set in my Christmas stocking. Did this beautifully displayed gift encourage me to smoke? Did a liquorice pipe with red vermicelli giving the effect of burning encourage me to become a pyromaniac? Certainly not. I used to love the soft packets of chocolate cigarettes wrapped in rice paper and named Coronation, Kings or Old Toad. The word cigarettes was dropped from these little chocolate joys before the legislation came in to put a stop to such labelling. Many boiled sweets are regional and, in the North East, Black Bullets have been popular since 1906 — does this name encourage discrimination or gun crime? Barnetts Confectioners in Nottingham has made boiled sweets since 1896. Did its menthol Lung Healers really give false hope to those with a disease? After Trading Standards raised concerns in the 1950s, they were renamed Lun Jeelers. Many sweets have misleading names. Chewing Nuts are hard toffees with chocolate pips, but don’t contain nuts. Sweet Peanuts are a buttery boiled sweet shaped like a monkey nut. They are made of sugar, butter and flavourings, but not peanuts. I received a two-page letter of complaint about Camel Balls, a sugar-coated, sour, round chewing gum whose likeness to its namesake I am unable to confirm. ‘Whatever will you sell next?’ the complainant asked, before suggesting an unmentionable part of a frog. The Black Death was a bubonic plague pandemic that killed more than 100 million people in the 14th century. Today, it’s the name of a popular sweet, probably the sourest one made and sold in Britain. This lemon-flavoured, black-coloured boiled sweet is a killer in its own right, but only of your tongue lining and teeth enamel.