Midget Gems would be my last supper
What in the name of St Michael is going on at Marks and Spencer? It looks suspiciously like the wokeys have mounted a confectionery coup, that’s what.
While the rest of us were browsing the red-foil Valentine’s hearts – I like to eat and replace at least a dozen before presenting one each to my three nearest and dearest on February 14 – political correctness has gone a little crazy in the syrup-starch-and-gelatin aisle.
Midget Gems were this week renamed, in order to avoid causing offence to people of small stature. At M&S, the hate sweets will henceforth be called “Mini Gems”.
Now, at this juncture I should admit that Midget Gems are my favourite food group. They would be my Death Row meal, if I didn’t have the appetite for a Coronation chicken baguette.
As a little girl, I would count the days until I could toddle up to Mrs Scroggy’s front row sweetshop to buy two ounces, carefully measured and sold in a tiny white paper bag. Her chewy, flavoursome Midget Gems were the original and best, made by the firm of Lions in Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire.
Even at the age of four, I would accept no imitations, and fake Gems never escape my connoisseur’s eye. My scoop won’t trouble the nasty knock-offs sold at cinema pic’n’mix stands. Marks & Spencer’s I find too flaccid, too bland. Maynards are superior to both, their black gems a delicious blackcurrant rather than liquorice.
I freely admit I was quivering with indignation at the name change. But then I dug a little deeper into the persuasive reasoning of Erin Pritchard, the lecturer of disability studies at Liverpool Hope University who lobbied for the rebranding.
Also – to be honest, mostly – I read her tweet: “It seems that there are a lot of average-sized men getting upset about the removal of the word ‘midget’. I didn’t realise they were so sensitive.”
Eek. I have no desire to be associated with hordes of random men fulminating about sweetie names all over the internet. So to hell with it: bring on those Mini Gems. As long as my last ever state penitentiary lunch order is phoned through to Cleckheaton, I’ll die a happy woman.