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1. Sue

   These days every town seems to have a sweet shop. This seems to be quite a recent phenomena. I remember as a child every Friday we were allowed a bar of chocolate and my sisters and I all had a different favourite which we chose every week. Without giving the game away too much I think I can reveal that mine was a Crunchie. I used to like sticking my tongue in the middle and sucking on it until it stuck to it. Apart from this Friday treat (imagine my surprise when later an advert was produced that linked Crunchie with “that Friday feeling”!) we had a school tuck shop and most people visited the sweet shop on the way to school. I was living in Shropshire at the time and would buy what was called “kaylie” which in the south would probably be called sherbert although that usually has a more powdery consistency and “kaylie” had the consistency of sugar, was bright yellow and tasted of very tart lemons. I absolutely loved it although I didn’t have it after we’d moved. I have vivid memories of me being eight years old and crouching down in the V-bit of our classroom building (outside) at play time dipping my finger into the yellow crystals and sucking on it (sometimes it made my eyes water!) and two teachers who were policing the playground looking down at me and smiling to each other as if I was some sort of strange specimen. Adults often seemed to be fascinated by me because I was a bit quirky and “a pretty little thing”. At this time I was “the teachers pet” along with my very best friend Sally Nicholson. We were in Miss Barnes class who later became Mrs Jones (Mr Jones was a maths teacher at the senior school) and later caused great scandal by getting divorced because her husband went off with another woman. I still have the school picture taken the year we were in Miss Barnes class with Sally and I sitting at the front next to Miss Barnes hand in hand. Not long after that photo was taken Sally and her family were posted to Malaya. She was also a pretty little thing except she had curly hair, she lived in the officers quarters, I was always batting above my average even in those days!

   I always thought it strange that I had a three year period in my life when “kaylie” was a big part of it and then it was never to be heard of again.

   01 Apr 2010, 08:05