Tanners, or the confectionery pleasures of childhood

A powerful flashback brought on by walking into a Warsaw newsagents round the corner of my office.
All of a sudden, the exact combination of the smell of newsprint and confectionery (it had to have been the precise balance of chemicals) reminded me of Tanners, the newsagents and confectioners on Oaklands Road, round the corner from our house 45 years ago... A small boy would pop in, with thruppence or indeed even a tanner* pressed into his hand, to buy some sweets on his way home from school.

There's that characteristic smell of confectionery mingled with the smell of newsprint from copies of the Daily Herald, Daily Sketch and London Evening News (the latter delivered by Bedford vans, side doors slid open, delivery boys dashing out with bundles to drop off at the newsagents). And not forgetting the comics - Beano, Dandy, Commando, Lion and my favourite, Look and Learn.

Large glass jars of sweets stood alluringly colourful on shelves behind the counter, right up to the ceiling. Sold in quarter pound measures (4 ounces = 113 grammes) these sweets played havoc with young teeth. The boiled sweets in particular; acid drops, pear drops, winter mixture, bulls' eyes, aniseed twists - these were manufactured using sugar and various chemicals - absolutely awful when I think about their dentine-destroying potential! One of my favourites was 'milk bottles' - shaped like small milk bottles, creamy coloured and chewy. 

Along with the sweets in jars were those on display - brands still with us (Cadbury's Dairy Milk, Mars Bars, KitKats, Bounty, Smarties, Fry's Turkish Delight) and others long taken off the market (Spangles, Rowntree's Butterscotch Gums). Liquorice. Bootlaces, Blackjacks, All-Sorts, Pomfret cakes (I once ate an entire quarter pound bag and came out in a skin rash all over my body). And  Fruit Salads, like Blackjacks, these chews cost a farthing long after the farthing disappeared from our currency - four for an old penny.

In summer it would be ice lollies - Zoom was my favourite (red, yellow and green in colour, with collectable cards of spacecraft or jet aeroplanes inside the wrapper). There were also these pyramid-shaped blocks of fruit-flavoured ice; you'd tear open the packaging and suck all the flavour out of the ice.

Chewing gum and bubble gum also had collectable cards. Many of these were from the USA, Bazooka Joe, for instance. More interestingly for me were the historical ones, with facsimile pages from American newspapers in WWII, b&w photos (here's one I clearly recall). There was another series from the American Civil War, which included facsimile Union and Confederate banknotes; however I found this less compelling.

My favourite reading material (mid-'60s) was TV Century 21 comic, full of the illustrated adventures of my favourite children's TV puppet shows, Fireball XL5, Stingray and Thunderbirds. (A selection of front covers here.) And of course Look & Learn, a mix of educational content and excellent cartoons, such as the Trigan Empire.

As well as selling sweets and papers, Tanners also sold cheap toys, the best being Matchbox cars, which at the time cost a shilling (see post here about pre-decimal money in the UK).

* 'Tanner' - as well as the shopkeeper was coincidentally also the slang for a sixpenny bit (six old pence - two and half pence in decimal currency). Much then could be bought for that tanner pressed tightly in a little boy's hand.

Gastronomic pleasures of the '60s

Britain was not a foodie's paradise in the 1960s. Food was essentially dull stodge. School meals were unspeakably awful (gristly meat in gravy, powdered lumpy mashed potatoes, over-boiled greens). Ready meals didn't really exist - only Bird's Eye Chicken Pie springs to mind, bits of chicken and garden peas in that ubiquitous gravy, all in a pastry shell. I liked Bird's Eye Chicken Pie, associating it with those very rare occasions on which my mother was ill and my father would cook.

Supermarkets were still rare. I remember the old Sainsbury's on the Uxbridge Road in West Ealing before it was turned into a supermarket. There would be a grocery counter (queue here for sage and onion stuffing, gravy powder, jam, tinned pilchards and tapioca), a dairy counter (queue here for butter and cheese), a meat counter (queue here for lamb chops, mince and cold cuts). My favourites from Sainsbury's were mature Canadian Cheddar, gum-tinglingly good, with the word 'CANADA' stamped on the rind, and Hungarian salami (10/6d a pound, I recall); the right balance of meatiness, spiciness and under-stated garlic. Self-service came to our Sainsbury's some time in the mid-'60s.

My mother would do most of her shopping (very) locally, buying meat at Mr Laurence's, which typically she'd mince, add an egg and bread, and shape meatballs (kotlety mielone) for the frying pan. Fruit and veg at the greengrocer's further along the parade on Oaklands Road. Bread would come from Parker's on the Uxbridge Road (mostly ghastly white sliced); groceries (as in items in tins, packets, jars) from Sainsbury's. Ah, and fish - from MacFisheries on the Uxbridge Road.

Milk came delivered daily to our doorstep courtesy of Express Dairy's electric milk float. I remember yoghurt appearing in the late '60s; we'd first sampled this dairy delight on holiday in France; soon after our milkman began selling it. I also recall my brother (aged five) running down the middle of the Croft Gardens chasing the milk float and shouting at the milkman to stop as he wanted a yoghurt.

Tea was an essential requisite in every English household, and ours, despite its exotic provenance, was no exception. This was an age before the teabag. Tea was bought loose (we'd favour Brooke Bond) in quarter-pound packets, which often came with collector's cards (Butterflies of the World, for instance). The leaves would go into a glazed ceramic teapot (I recall one with blue-and-white stripes; I guess they'd be broken frequently or have chipped spouts so they'd not pour straight). Boiled water would come from the kettle that was boiled on the gas stove. I can see the kettle now; lime scale in the spout, aluminium, black bakelite (?) handle and lid knob, blackened around the base by the town gas flames. The tea would be served with milk, and for us young ones, with sugar. And Rich Tea biscuits. To my current taste buds - repulsive. At the time, reassuring, calming, nourishing and as English as Queen Victoria*.

Being Polish, the more adventurous food in our house came from Pan Rozwadowski's Polish shop on the corner of Northfields Avenue and Elers Road. Here, my parents would buy powidly (plum jam), smoked meats, krówki (Polish cream fudge) and other foreign-currency earning products denied its subjects by Poland's communist regime

Food in Britain suddenly became exciting in the 1970s with the advent of foreign food. Until then, Britons of almost all classes were condemned to an awful diet.

* Who, as Captain Edmund Blackadder pointed out had 'a German father, was married to a German and was surnamed Saxe-Coburg-Gotha'.

Oaklands Road

At the northern end of Croft Gardens is Oaklands Road. In my childhood, this was a serious road, more serious than Croft Gardens, or Manton Avenue, or Seward Road, because it had shops, a pub - and most importantly, my school on it. Plus, more cars drove up and down Oaklands Road.

I will write more about Oaklands Primary School, which I attended for seven years (from the ages of four to 11). But Oaklands Road itself was a rather ordinary road of Victorian two-up, two-down terraced houses; "working class". I can recall seeing children without shoes on it and indeed the same children taking a dump in the gutter, but they came from a problem family - the only one on the street.

Just around the corner from us on Oaklands Road stood a parade of shops (still there), of which the most significant for me was Tanner's. A 'tanner' was sixpence (six old pence - two and half new pee), and in the mid '60s, it could buy a lot. Two small Cadbury's chocolate bars or 24 Blackjack or Fruit Salad chewy sweets (a farthing each). Or an tetrahedron full of frozen orange juice (with tuppence change). Or a Zoom ice lolly. Two tanners would buy you a Matchbox toy. I will write more about toys and play anon. At the near end of the parade was Lawrence's the Butchers, at the far end was The Grosvenor pub, a Courage house (today a listed building). A smell of stale beer and tobacco that pervaded the air around it. My parents rather looked down upon it and upon those who frequented it.