was revived a couple of years back, and may still be found (I say may) in places like Cyber Candy in Covent Garden, if you are very lucky. It was a cracking chocolate bar, mind. I don't think it got approval for a full revival, like the Wispa (why did they take that away in the first place?).

(EDIT - you're not lucky, production appears to have stopped again http://www.cybercandy.co.uk/aaasmt/index.php/url_pmet3/xlc_2177/xdbc_tex...)

Marathon being renamed Snickers? That's nothing: They're just taking the mickey with this:

http://www.snickersmarathon.com/

Now, are they still making the re-issued Star Bar? nom nom nom nom

Bloody lovely. But not a patch on a Picnic.

was the one that disintegrated in your mouth into razor-sharp fragments of green minty goodness? Was it Mint Cracknell? Used to make my tongue bleed.

You don't need any of that crispy, crunchy, chocolated-coated pap when you have a stick of liquorice root on your mitt as a growing kid. Exercised your jaw until it ached, kept your bowels regular and could double as a lethal weapon if needed.

I can still buy the decent stuff when I venture over to Oswaldtwistle. Marvellous.

bloody tree eaters,there's still nowt like a good handful of grass

when... there was this really tasty chocolate bar called 'Coffee Crisp' (not Toffee Crisp!). I wish it hadn't disappeared, but I suspect it wouldn't taste the same these days, probably be half the size and twice the price. Damn those confectionery meddlers.

On the thin pretext that it mentions Fry's Five Boys chocolate can I just mention Bywater's unique "Lost Worlds":

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/lost-world...

and

http://antiqbook.co.uk/boox/clent/6049.shtml

will give you the, er, flavour

(edit: and going to amazon.co.uk, using search inside, and looking for Fry's will bring up page 71. Well worth looking up.)

Now your talking.

They were lovely and chewy and stodgy.

Finger lollies. They were a strawberry flavoured hand with its index finger outstretched; available and then discontinued in the early '80s. I also miss the old style Opal Fruits and Black Magic.

"Stop making such a fuss," your mum would say. "It's just the same."

Mums lie. About the stuff of huge import, which didn't really matter anyway when you were seven, and about the piffling, insignificant stuff, which certainly did. One example of the latter was the oft-repeated maternal claim that the woeful Bar Six was identical to the Kit-Kat* in every respect except for its orange packaging.

"And anyway," she'd add, now with just a trace of desperation discernible in her voice, "with this you get six sticks instead of only four!"

Aren't parents pathetic?

*(I mean the original Rowntree's product, obviously. The current Nestlé surrogate may fool the XBox generation but not us old-timers.)

Drifter
Fry's Chocolate Cream
Golden Cup
Cadbury's Bournville
Galaxy
Prize
Nestle Star Trek which was "cream flavour candy with sugar crisps".

And finally in the arena of the crisp:
KP Outer Spacers!

No, not really.

Coming from Glasgow I have extensive experience of confectionary, as well as the teeth and dentist's bills to prove it.
For all that I loved shop-bought sweets, my very favourite was home made tablet. At this point Scottish readers will experience a pang, say 'I haven't had that for years!', then experience an irresisible desire to make some. That's exactly what I did a couple of weeks ago - here's the recipe I used: http://scruss.com/tablet.html
I take no responsibility for tooth deacy, heart attacks or type 2 diabetes resulting from anyone following my advice.

Kali - pronounced "KAY-lye" - was a very fine powder, rainbow-coloured, that was similar to sherbet (although the stuff in Barrett's Sherbet Fountains was quite a bit coarser and just, well, wrongity-wrong), that was sold loose from anatomical-specemin jars and helpfully dispatched in cones of Izal toilet paper.* To consume it, you could just lick your finger and dip it in, but the proper way to proceed was to buy a separate stick of hard "Spanish" - for the culturally deprived, that's processed black licorice (see Beany's post above) - which you'd coat in a generous lashing of kali in order to achieve the much-sought-after authentic blazer-ruining effect.

(* If memory serves.)

noone else seems to remember the Summit Bar. It was similar to a Topic but with bits of angelica and candied peel instead of hazelnuts.
And whilst we're on the subject what about Tiffin, the Amazin' Raisin Bar and of course not to forget one of our very own here at the Massive, Five Centres?
My favourite was the pineapple segment.
Happy Days.

I sent my mum out with strict instructions to come back with one of those new Curly-Wurlies everyone was raving about, so I could be the talk of the playground.

She returned with a Mike Reid Triffic bar - razor-sharp butterscotch shards, as I remember, in dog-treat chocolate. The phrase "it's all the same, isn't it?" may have been uttered.

In recent years I have managed to forgive my mother for this enormous social gaff. But, interestingly, not Mike Reid. I even hold a grudge against the DJ Mike Reid, just for good measure.

The original Curly Wurly, by the way, was made of a kind of toffee/latex hybrid which could be stretched out longer than a 6-year-old's arm.

When was the last time you saw that written on anything?

School food was not great, but the tuck shop (yes, I went to Greyfriars) was marvellous, presided over by the groundsmans wife, who had a memorable embonpoint, usually resulting in hilarious requests for "2 of your big ones, please". Anyhow, I digress, at the time of decimalisation, crisps were one of the few things that went down in price, with the 3 packs for a florin, becoming 4 for 10p. Well, I made great hay with taht one, I can tell you, partcularly as it was the old Cheese and Onion flavour of Golden Wonder then, far stronger and coarser, bearing even less relation to either the expected constituent ingredients than is the case now. (Can you even get Golden Wonder now? It seems all to be the bloody ubiquity of Walkers, a disappointing alternative if ever there was.)

I still eat Double Deckers with appalling regularity.

Was in Melbourne a couple of years ago and came upon the nicest sweetie I've ever had in many years. Cadbury's 'Cherry Ripe'. Dark chocolate covering a cherry and coconut centre.

Bliss. I ate far too many and filled a plastic with them to bring home. Not universally available in the UK (WHY?! WHY O WHY O WHY?) but the Australian Shop in Covent Garden sells them. I am saved.

anyone?

You can still get Wagon Wheels and Curly Wurlys, but a Wagon Wheel is no longer the size of an actual Wagon Wheel the way that it used to be, and a Curly Wurly has definitely got shorter. And we've got a pack of Penguins in our cupboard at home and they're smaller too...

Now this confection may only have existed in the hard-core marketplate of 1970s Glasgow, but if I remember rightly it was a 'chew' bar composed of migraine-inducing coloured bands, 'spliced' together into a gooey whole. The term 'food' could not be used in its vicinity as any relationship between the 'Splicer' and things occuring in nature was tenuous to say the least.

Update: I have just carried out some extensive internet research based upon sites suggested above: http://www.aquarterof.co.uk/mtype2/whatever/archives/splicer_bars/

They were Opal Fruits. They are Opal Fruits. They will always be Opal Fruits.

I, and am sure the UN, do not recognise the Starburst for they were not made to make your mouth water.

Every year Cadbury's Easter Eggs are getting smaller and smaller. Just think in about twenty years time they will be the size of small marble. I used to buy sweets at "Maynards", who remembers that chain? This is the last shop in the country I believe:
http://www.maynards-sweets.co.uk/

Little fruit sweets not dissimilar to the Tooty Fruity but in a bag that had a thermometer like measure on a clear plastic strip as part of its design. As you ate the contents the quantity remaininig dropped from Trillions to Billions to merely Millions.

From the mid-70's. Toffee, cherries and coconut covered in chocolate.

And Caramac. Is that still going?

Old Jamaica
cheap chocolate tools from the penny tray
Opal mints
something that was meant to be like chewing tobacco in a drawstring bag
Treets (they melt in your mouth, not in your hand)
more recently:
Fuse
and what was that one that was like a creamier milky way centre with thin strands of chocolate webbed around it - from the 90s.

They used to do flavoured toffos in a different coloured packet which was really exotic when you were 8! As with all mixed sweets though there was always a booby trap (and why is it that there are always more of those than any other type?)

Beware the dreaded liquorice toffo!

..an ice-cream called the Wibbly-Wobbly Wonder ?

Basically a Marathon turned inside out.

..What's got a hazelnut in every bite?
A. Yes, a squirrel turd.
(It's the way I tell'em)

enjoying my sweets as I gazed at the plumes of cigarette smoke swirling in the light of the projector. Might have been a bit unhealthy (the tabs, not the sweets), but boy did it create atmosphere...

When global branding goes wrong.

I used to like Mavericks which according to Wiki only had a limited shelf life

If anybody wants to know more about the nefarious doings of the candy industry try to read "The Emperors of Chocolate" by Joel Glenn Brenner. It covers the decades long battle between Mars and Hershey for world domination, plenty of underhand stuff, and, the reason why US chocolate tastes so different to European chocolate. Anyway, a great read.

no-one has mentioned Spanish Gold. It was an oblong packet of random shaped slivers of vaguely coconut flavoured bogeys.
In later years much enjoyed Pez but was particularly fond of Beechnut chewing gum made by wrigleys. whatever happened to that?
Also Potato puffs and Peardrax - a pear flavoured pop - always a treat when we came out the swimming baths back on to the school bus.

Horrible bubble gum that you couldn't blow bubbles with and an insultingly unfunny cartoon strip. Bastards.

Thank heavens for Bubblicious and Bubble Yum that brought British bubble gum into the 20th century.

and you won't need to send off for one

In public the Double Decker suffers from an identity crisis, as yet unresolved by any advertising campaign.

Yorkies were always the staple of the blue collar workforce. Bounty’s are the taste of paradise. It has long been impossible to eat a Flake in a way that doesn’t lay yourself bare to Freudian analysis, in which you are inevitably revealed as a sexually depraved libertine. Mars Bars were, for many years, and against all odds, the snack of choice for those hoping to lead a healthy, active lifestyle.

The Double Decker is - with its mismatched purple and orange livery, and chewy nougat topping that conceals shards of a palette-gouging chocolate and cereal base - the perennial favourite of the social outcast. It’s what the dominatrix crams into the mouth of her gimp, before zipping shut his tight leather mask. It’s the furtively consumed lunchtime meal of 30-something men, who spend inordinate amounts of their time hunched over bus time tables in public libraries - the kind of adults for whom the social and physical awkwardness of their early teens has extended into a lifelong purgatory.

No one has ever watched a man eating a Double Decker and thought: “There stands a fine specimen of masculinity, I wonder what premiership football club he plays for,” or any other even remotely complimentary thing.

Instead as they look-on with a mixture of pity and disgust, wondering whether this sub-human figure owns a metal detector; whether his mother still lays out his clothes for him; whether he has ever known the touch of woman.

I can say all of these unkind things with a degree of impunity because I like Double Deckers and eat them regularly. In fact, yesterday I left the house with the sole intention of purchasing one, so that I could consume it while writing this reply.

I am, I know, a profoundly pathetic and ridiculous human being. Cadburys manufacture a chocolate bar for me, and for people like me.

Me mum always told me that if you swallow Bubblegum it would wrap around your insides and you would die. For some strange reason I still did it!!

A few years back one of the girls in our office brought back some chocolates and sweets from her holiday in the USA as is customary where I work. Amongst the delights on offer was a chocolate cake type thing called a Slow Poke - you can imagine the fun we had with that - 'anyone fancy a slow poke?'
Strangely it was made by Cadburys but you cant get them here.

Next week I am on business in USA and one of my colleagues has asked me to bring back a stash of Skittles in a Pink Packet - they are flavours not available in UK for some strange reason. I will report back after sampling them.

Pale blue packet toffee, yellow peanut.

And what about Galaxy Counters? The chocolate one from Revels, all on its own, with a number printed on it.

Did someone say Icebreaker? Or Pink Panther bars or Animal bars?

Sorry, for the late response i'm 8 hours behind you. Anyway, Emperors is most definately not an anti BB rant. Its part history of chocolate itself, the story of the two big candy giants (did you know that Hershey has its own town and theme park in Pennsylvania (similar to what messr's Cadbury did near Birmingham?), and lastly the author is agog at the lengths these two companies will go to in order to outdo one another. Do give it a try, I can't imagine its real expensive these days, being about ten years old.

New to me, available fron Costco, the cash'n'carry people, who stock many odd ranges never seen subsequently in the shops of the newsagents who shop there. In the vein of the current trend for sour sweets, these are the sour of the sour, with a chart on the wrapper to compare how long you could keep it in your mouth against other acts of derring do. I rather like 'em. Or one, anyway. Occasionally. When in the mood.

Also found on beaches

check out The Guardian's Food and Drink blog where they have it on average once every three weeks or so...

My life's never been the same since these disappeared. Dark chocolate Bount Bars went for a while too but resurfaced and can be obtained in decent sweet shops.

What about the boxes of Poppets you used to get in the cinema form a machine?

Pacers - Spearmint flavoured sweets in the style of Opal Fruits.
MB Bars - Chocolate (Dark) covered icing type thingy.
Chelsea whoppers - intensely chocolate flavoured strips.
The bar mentioned above as milky way type centre with chocolate strands around it was `Moments`.
What was the dark chocolate and mint combo bar from the mid 80`s? It might have came in 2 or 3 different kinds.

Milky Ways have lost their bite as well. They changed their wrapper and recipe a while ago and their just not the same anymore.
The same thing happened with Mars Bars, they tried a lighter version which just wasn't right. They're okay now but still lighter in texture than those made in the seventies.Mind you when you're a youngster all sweets taste better than they do now I think. Or maybe I've just lost my sweet tooth.

It's Amazin what Raisins can do...
Anyone remember this little bar? Just a slab of raisins covered in chocolate. Never did find out what raisins can do, though.
And what about Freddo - the chocolate frog?

Possibly the cheapest-looking advert ever.

...and bearing a suspicious resemblance to Alberto Frog from the Bod cartoons

So pleased to hear the mention of Bliss. The lasting memory of childhood days was enjoying a "Bliss", made I think by Rowntree and usually purchased from the Maypole supermarket [shurely shome mistake? Ed.] in West Street Horsham, or occasionally from Mr Cumber, the sweetshop/fag shop on Queen Street, opp the entrance to the football ground. This was a delicious blend of gooey, creamy filling in which floated large chunks of walnut and all covered in a layer of milk chocolate. can you really still get them in Covent Garden? Are they open now!?

Anyone remember them! Puff candy was a bit like a crunchie but without the chocolate and was thicker and knobbly. Lucky tatties were a queer concoction, hard to describe, about the size of 2 ginger nuts, candyish stuff inside, with a little plastic charm in the middle of it (the lucky part), that you could choke on if you weren't carefull, and it was all covered in a cinamon powder.

... on the subject of Aztec bars? Why did they disappear so suddenly? I want to consume just one more before my time is up.

and me dear old Mam still gets me a Terry's Chocolate Orange every Xmas and half a doz Cadburys Cream Eggs at easter. Man I love that woman!

When I was a kid my favorite was Nestle's Mirage, it was like Aero but in more of a Mars bar shape than a square bar shape.

These days I like M&Ms, especialy the dark chocolate and peaunut butter ones. I wish they hadn't teased us with limited edition mint and cherry flavors and just added them permanitely to the M&M roster.