Listography Top Five sweets

The very sweet Kate Takes 5 has a listography theme of top five sweets this week, which has prompted a trip down memory lane.  My local sweet shop as a child looked nothing like this picture, it was run by a witch with nicotine stained fingers and nails like corkscrews.   We were only allowed to buy from her if the sweets came wrapped.  We snuck in to buy candy cigarettes, but for proper sweets we had to go further afield.  

I still remember the excitement of mum taking me to the newsagents to buy me 2oz of cough candy twists in a little white bag.  They were the first boiled sweest I was allowed, and this sweet shop rite of passage was made even more special because mum took me to the newsagents without my little brother.

I think my dad introduced me to aniseed balls. Many happy hours of turning my tongue red and crunching away to get at the seed in the middle.  Wondering in some Willy Wonka type fantasy whether if I planted it, it would it grow into an aniseed ball tree.

Mum introduced me to sherbet fountains too.  I was always disappointed that the licorice straw didn't quite function as it was supposed to.   I soon discovered sherbet dib dabs did exactly what they said on the packet though. 

My grandparents always had polos around.  I don't know why having a hole makes them better, but it is a piece of genius product design.  A classic sweet. 

The best thing ever as a very little girl was those sweetie necklaces.  Jewellery and sugar,  now you're talking to the thirty three five year old in me.