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24/9/2020 0 Comments

When we were children my sister and I were given shiny sixpences for our pocket money each Saturday morning. That’s 6d not 6p! My Dad used to joke that he’d minted them freshly in his greenhouse, but I knew that he really dug up pennies and halfpennies instead, as they were the same copper-brown colour as the Fenland soil in our vegetable garden.

Obviously, our Saturday afternoon mission was to then spend ever single penny on sweets from the village store which also sold boiled ham and candles. I liked to buy Fruit Salads and Black Jacks as I could get four for a penny and thus twenty-four of the little wrapped sweets in total (‘long multiplication’ always came easier to me than ‘sharing’).

This meant a huge brown paper bag of sweets and, somehow, the time it took me to peel off the papers of each one only served to increase the anticipation of a fruity or aniseed treat. We sell both in our pick n’ mix section in the shop and people usually have a selection of each – a bit like Cherry Lips and Floral Gums.

My sister is four years older than me so used to try and persuade me to buy Lucky Bags instead. Her reasoning was that there would always be something inside that I wouldn’t like … Flying Saucers and Sherbet Fountains quickly became my new favourites – such was my enduring and endearing brand loyalty - and, again, Flying Saucers in particular literally fly off our shelves today.

It’s nice that so many of our playground talking points still come up in conversations in the shop – unlike Spangles or Rickets – and I remember clearly the contents of the Retro Packs of sweets which Michelle makes up, as though none of the fifty years had subsequently come between us.

We had a Great Auntie Minnie who lived a short bus ride away. She was famous for her chunky knitted cardigans in various shades of green, and also frosted glass containers of biscuits that, though we couldn’t see them clearly, were surely soft and probably infested with earwigs as she often left the lids off while she at first listened and then always fell asleep to the Home Service on her transistor radio.

Auntie Minnie also kept about one hundred and sixteen varieties of shortbread in a battered old tin with a lid featuring a faded Scottish scene of stags on high alert and grouse looking dangerously nonchalant – much like the Famous Grouse on our whisky fudge tins and boxes of toffees. One of the fan-shaped types was, she used to tell me in a grand voice like a 1950s BBC radio announcer, ‘petticoat tailed shortbread.’

My sister explained nicely on the way home that all petticoats had tails but that little girls tied them up with colourful rubber bands – a lot like on ponytails – so that little boys couldn’t see them. She was full of tales such as these and, of course, I believed every word she said.

thought of this when our new fairground collection of Christmas tins came in this week, containing petticoat tail shortbread in the form of a Magical Carousel. Thankfully, the Big Wheel and Helter Skelter tins that complete the set contain chocolate chip shortbread and salted caramel fudge. You know where you are with those two, even though they may not conjure up the same magic of childhood.

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17/9/2020 0 Comments

“It takes all sorts!” my Dad used to say - especially when someone had behaved oddly - but then he would do, given his love of Liquorice allsorts.

We still sell lots of those, and Meltis Newberry Fruits too. These were his absolute favourite sweets, or at least he pretended they were on each birthday, Christmas Day and Father’s Day when I just went for the easy option, rather than really thinking about whether he would have preferred something different. I wish I could do something about that now, but the moment has long passed, as has he.

It’s nice to have a very regular reminder of him, though, when someone brings a packet up to the shop counter. We have a sugar-free version now as well. I don’t think he would have taken those lying down…

He would have been exasperated by some of our customers who just hang out in the shop on their mobile ‘phones. I’m afraid we have to move them out again now – like cattle at The High Chaparral ranch – as we need to try and control the floor space available as best we can. Please don’t be offended if this happens to you. We use the lassos quite rarely and Michelle has absolutely banned me from using the electric cattle prod that gave me even more pleasure than watching old westerns on TV.

He would have been very angry at the young boy who reached into our window display from the shop doorway one Sunday afternoon and stole a packet of Sour Patch Kids. Whether referring to it as karma or serendipity, he would have been equally aghast at the boy’s brassy mother who hurled it back loudly into the shop in utter disgust as it was empty (as are all our packets of USA sweets on display in the window). I thought she was going to make some kind of complaint under the 1968 Trade Descriptions Act, but quickly realised that long words like ‘Act’ would have been well beyond her.

Dad would, though, have enjoyed talking with the lovely lady and her daughter who came in for a long chat about the state of retail in modern society between displaying immaculate manners and immaculate taste in chocolate bars. She – the mother and probably the very switched-on daughter in a few years – runs ‘The Rising Sun’ on top of Cleve Hill. We had a day off once and stopped to admire the views from the top of the hill but weren’t aware that you could see the Welsh Mountains as well as Exmoor on a clear day. Mum and Dad both loved Devon so I’m sure he was smiling when she told us this.

He would have loved two of our best (and very funny) friends who come in every Saturday to stock up on their favourite sweets and to fill us in on all the gossip about their wonderful children – whose names I get wrong on a shockingly regular basis. Maurice – or is it Morris, or is it to Peter – is a Manchester United fan but still a very nice guy and we exchange football banter until I happen to notice that the queue of customers is out of the door …

We also enjoy the company of another lovely couple who visit regularly. The man is about my age – a West Ham fan so, again, football discussion is required while I fill his jar with milk chocolate raisins. Each time his wife visited Next, opposite, he would sneak into the shop and we had to pretend that we had never seen him before, whenever she spotted him and stood knowingly in the doorway, tapping her watch like a certain Manchester United manager from the past.

It transpires that she does a lot of home baking and I may once (possibly twice) have mentioned that I’d be happy to sample her wares, prior to them being transported to neighbours or family members and so forth. My selfless offer was rewarded last Sunday when she presented me with a tray of banana muffins, fruit scones and shortbread. What a truly lovely thought! I could have hugged her – but left it to Dad to do so.

Mum and Dad were married for more than sixty years and they were clearly in the shop with me on Tuesday when a nice lady came in to admire our various tins of vanilla fudge. With Christmas approaching we have many beautiful tins and gifts available now, so it took her quite a while – and she was in absolutely no rush. She was an elegant lady, full of smiles, and generous in her praise of our little world. She departed with the words “The sun came out on our wedding day and it hasn’t gone in since.”

As Dad used to say: “it takes all sorts.” I wish more people could be like her… or him.

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10/9/2020 0 Comments

‘Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Martley, Claines, the High Street and Hive…’

You may sort of remember this song by Simon and Garfunkel. It was released in 1966 but is based on an old (or olde if we want some consistency with our shop brand) English folk song from the Fourteenth Century.

Scarborough Fair was itself established in 1253 by a royal charter, granted by King Henry III of England and was actually a huge trading event, held in Scarborough on the east coast of Yorkshire, and lasting for over a month. Traders came from all over northern Europe and sales of seaside rock, well, rocketed.

The song is about unrequited love and it’s hard to get things right at the moment isn’t it? Michelle and I think that Worcester City Council did absolutely the right thing on everyone’s behalf by cancelling this year’s Victorian Christmas Fair (or Fayre…) on safety grounds if nothing else.

Modern-day traders and stallholders will undoubtedly feel the effects. We ran a sweets trailer before opening our shop in Worcester two and a half years ago and know how difficult it is when events are cancelled, especially in terms of cash flow.

Tough love is hard to handle and not everybody agreed with us or the Council. If there had been a spike in virus cases, people would have pointed the finger and asked what on earth the councillors were thinking? If Covid-19 cases somehow dissipate, people will point the finger and ask what on earth the councillors were thinking?

We shall miss the footfall of course and welcoming so many visitors to our sweet shop. Presumably, most of the population of Wales will also miss the excursions to our lovely city that weekend, and write folk songs instead…

Regardless of this news, we are busily planning for Christmas, in the expectation that people will buy their gifts earlier in case of Herodendus problems later. We have two lovely new ranges of chocolates from Ireland and Belgium, and Barkley’s Mints will freshen the breath of even the most overworked of dwarves – and that’s just in our basement.

My favourite flavour of mints (is that a contradiction in terms?) is cinnamon, but I think that has more to do with my memories of Christmas spices in my Mum’s kitchen than my ongoing obsession with rectangular tins.

We also have beautiful new tins of vanilla fudge for horse lovers (not that the fudge needs to be fed to the animals themselves). Various types of our equine friends are featured against a white background and even the ingredients label is styled on a stable door. They are already selling quickly, and I don’t think they will see December unless of course they refuse at the final fence, as I sometimes do.

It feels odd to be planning Christmas in September, but at the same time rather lovely to think of happy times as the winds and chills of autumn take hold. The shop is an especially magical place in the last months of the year and I hope we will be able to stay open for you to enjoy it with us.

Soon after Scarborough Fair was established, plague hit England. The Black Death remains the deadliest pandemic in human history, hugely more costly in human lives than even the ‘Spanish Flu’ of a hundred years ago. Tragically, tens of millions died but, thankfully, some were spared.

‘Are you going to the Worcester Victorian Christmas Fayre?’
Not this year, but hopefully next.

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3/9/2020 0 Comments

We spend a lot of time looking back, don’t we? I suppose that’s one of the big reasons why a sweet shop like Mr Simms Worcester is so appealing!

Many, many of our customers come in simply to reminisce about our dozens of jars of colourful boiled sweets, jellies, toffees and liquorice, while attempting in vain to persuade their young children that a Sherbet Lemon is a far better option than Toxic Waste, or that Pineapple Rock will last longer in the memory than a Pez Dispenser…

But what of looking forward – especially at what seem like important crossroads in Worcester, UK and world history.

It’s 32 years ago today that Michelle and I decided on a single path in life and got married. The ceremony took place in a little monastery tucked away in the Northumberland Hills, but she meant the world to me that day, and still does.

To celebrate, our three children clubbed together – how I miss the days when they would club each other in the sandpit with any weapon they could lay their collective hands on – to buy us a gift card for the Miller & Carter Steakhouse on Cathedral Square. Over sumptuous steaks and prosecco (it was Thursday after all!) we looked back over our life together, but probably spent more time looking ahead to adventures still to come.

We had to order our Christmas stock last week and obviously hope that after the floods, storms, lingering virus and predicted plagues of locusts from Belgium - should a Brexit Trade Deal not be agreed in time – we will have a more successful period.

We have been in Worcester for two and a half years now. It was always our ambition to work together one day and that is why we took early retirement to open our little shop. If you have a life partner, then uncertainty seems far easier to deal with and our kettle never runs cold.

On the big questions of the day there is plenty of the unknown to go around. Will the BBC eventually find the words to explain why it thought it had a right to re-write Elgar’s masterpiece, or that it could not be re-purposed for all of us in a multi-cultural society? Will the new Gold Digger film production company in California have any chance of success without Meghan’s acting? Will we ever be able to stock sour Blue Raspberry Stars ever again?

Uncertainty can certainly make us feel anxious or it can be embraced and seen for the positive outcomes that might result, rather than necessarily negative ones that come to mind more easily. Each time I look up at the wonderful light over the Malverns in the evening sky, or feel the sun’s warmth on the back of my neck as I walk along Worcester High Street every morning, I am reassured that everything is as it was always meant to be.

We can usually tell if families are ‘happy’ and forward-looking or not, without reverting to that card game we enjoyed as children. There have been lots of children visiting the shop with their parents over the Bank Holiday weekend and most have been an absolute pleasure.

One man swore out loud at me when I told him he couldn’t bring his dog into our sweet shop; another twenty-something told me that sucralose (used in many of our sugar-free sweets) was actually sugar in disguise, and a young lad scowled when I drew the line at counting 20 Smarties into his pick n’ mix bag (after one cola bottle, two white mice, one cherry and three strawberries), but, in general people have been relaxed with each other - happy in each other’s company - and therefore warm and friendly towards us.

Our neighbour’s husband died last week. He was 82 but his wife had looked after him for the 27 years since he had a stroke and was confined to a wheelchair. I know that Michelle would do exactly the same for me, and I for her. It is a sweet feeling when you can look forward openly and honestly, no matter how lovely the past might have been, and however tempting it is to return to it.

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27/8/2020 1 Comment

Sweet experiences for young and old

Although Mr Simms Worcester is essentially a retro brand, we do have a range of products that suit all ages – from Toxic Waste and Pez Dispensers for young children through Sour Patch Kids for students of psychology and clinical depression to Golden Humbugs for those older people not particularly looking forward to Christmas.

Of course, with this come widely different attitudes to life inside our sweet shop. Many children are delighted to enter our magical little world and expect Harry Potter to emerge from the wall marked 9 ¾ at any moment – if that doesn’t happen, he has left us chocolate Frogs, Botts and Slugs to remember him by.

We have been students more recently than we were children and enjoy the friendly banter that seems to symbolise the University of Worcester. It’s so nice to be able to pick and mix sweets for those who will shortly be heading out into the world to pick and choose exciting career paths, although we hope they will remember the few minutes they spent with us too, having fun.

Like many older people, Michelle and I have had a life full of experiences, travelling and sharing (often re-living) memories with our three wonderful children. For some, though, life has been a solitary existence or suddenly become lonely; a trip to a sweet shop can be poignant but also hopefully therapeutic after a good chat and a reminisce over ‘Lucky Bags’ or ‘Spangles’ we all enjoyed as children in the ‘Sixties.

We have a regular old gentleman who comes in for Barley Sugars. He told us once that he was ninety year’s old and had just come back from ‘motoring around Devon and Cornwall.’ Always immaculately turned out in three-piece suit, tie and top pocket silk handkerchief I do imagine him driving straight out of the Wind in the Willows.

Another upright gentleman in blazer and military tie who has had medical issues lately – he told me in remarkably intimate detail about his rectal examination at Worcester Royal – came in this week especially to show me some photographs of him and his comrades outside Worcester Guildhall on a Remembrance Sunday forgotten by most. They were lovely images and he was full of pride in telling me about each person featured.

“I have lots more of these back at home!” he told me delightedly, and so glad of someone to share his life with. “I had to give all my medals away, of course.” He says this in such a matter-of-fact way that it makes me as sad as the fact that I know he has done so because he has no family. He tells me this often. I know also that he goes back to a tiny bedsit in a grand house’ that isn’t what it was’ in an area that’s ‘gone downhill in the last fifty years.’ I know this because he tells me often - sometimes twice a day - because he has nobody else to tell his news to.

One little Japanese boy (of no more than three years on this earth) had plenty to say when he popped in to see us last week. Unfortunately, it was in Japanese. His mother was more interested in the history of our building and then the history of Worcester itself so I gave her a verbal guided tour of Powick, through The Commandery, King Charles’s House and The Guildhall before ending back on the High Street.

Her little boy had been chatting happily to himself throughout my lecture while she listened, fascinated, or perhaps had perfected the art of sleeping soundly with her eyes open.

When I was fifteen, I went on an ‘exchange trip’ to France, armed with a French-English / English-French Collins Phrasebook and a teenager’s determination to thrive in exotic destinations. On the way over on the coach I had revised a particular phrase that I thought would be appropriate. Once settled into a little farmhouse with a farmer, his wife, three children and three blind mice, I cleared my throat dramatically, pulled myself up to my full height of at least fifteen inches and asked the pertinent question of the hour in a quite breath-taking French accent: “Excuse me, sir, but could you please tell me from which platform the midnight train from Marseilles leaves?”

Looks of astonishment and a silence that seems to last for the whole two weeks followed.

Our little friend had clearly consulted his Japanese-English / English-Japanese Collins Phrasebook before visiting us because, as he left, clutching six pieces of Pineapple Rock he turned slowly and wished us a cheerful “Farewell, and look after all of your babies.”

We shall. Young and old.

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20/8/2020 0 Comments

Some of you may remember one of my previous blog posts in which I mentioned Pierre our poltergeist – and that a little boy had confidently told me that ‘he’ was a ‘she’, and called Sarah?

Well, Pierre/Sarah has been especially active this week in hurling bags of Cotswold Fudge Company products across the floor but, curiously, only the vegan varieties of vanilla, sea salt and chocolate. Maybe Pierre/Sarah is a carnivore and objects to alternative food chains? Perhaps we should store bags of pink pigs or white mice on those shelves instead by way of an experiment?

Yesterday, Michelle was filling up the slush machine with a new variety – mango (which is delicious as well as being yellow) – whereupon the machine suddenly stopped working for no reason. Almost immediately, a packet of vanilla fudge shot out from the shelf and landed by her feet … and the machine began working again as though there had been no silent pause in proceedings. Perhaps Pierre/Sarah has some bad history in the West Indies, or even the West Midlands?

I do worry whether there is a connection between our irritable spirit and strange movements from upstairs. Ever since we’ve been in the building – which was built in the 1750s – we have each individually or collectively heard sounds from the floor above. We don’t actually have access to that floor from the shop, and you can only reach it from Fish Street via a roll-up door which (roll up, roll up for our next trick) is always rolled down and locked.

The floor above our shop has been up for rent ever since we first came to Worcester in February 2018 to look for prospective shop premises. Our immediate neighbours have closed down – without even saying goodbye – and the Currency Exchange further along from them is also closed because many people can’t seem to exchange pleasantries at the moment, let alone coins minted with Covid.

So, the rooms above us simply stop at walls separating them from more empty rooms further on. There is no possibility of sounds from beyond being referred back to us. Or perhaps this activity is from much further beyond the ‘normal’ parameters of time and space? I hope the sounds aren’t coming from the opposite direction i.e. across Fish Street as that would mean they originate in St Helen’s church; my own personal knowledge of spirits feels a bit safer when restricted to Bailey’s chocolate or the Famous Grouse toffees we sell in our own earthly environment.

We have heard heavy footsteps and furniture being dragged along the floor at various times of the day, or softer footsteps that are more akin to children skipping and jumping. On each occasion one of us has rushed round to see if the steel roll-up door was still closed and locked. I think you already knew that it was.

We also experienced flashes of white light on Monday. We’re not normally open on Mondays as we sadly had to make three members of staff redundant, so it is the only day that Michelle and I get to spend some time off together as we are otherwise in the shop on ghost watching duty (though we will be open for the next two Mondays up to and including the Bank Holiday). Anyway, this Monday saw the shop temporarily converted into a small studio for a photoshoot of a whole range of new products from our new brand: The Sweet Lorry.

When we were first setting up the shop a lovely young couple pressed their noses up against the glass to see what was going on. We let them in for a sneak preview and they became our first customers (bubble gum bottles). We later found out that Dan is a photographer with expertise in product photography so was duly asked to come in for seven hours to shoot our new range of gift boxes and wicker hampers full of chocolate, fudge, and sweets.

Each hamper is themed and has a pub name (see what spirits can drive you to!) such as The Ginger Route, The Coffee Pot and The Whisky Pamper. This will primarily be an online brand (website due in September if my sorrows don’t drown me first), but we have an installation in the shop on Worcester High Street so do come along and see what we’re up to.

Finally, I just wanted to say how lovely it is to have our near neighbours at Côte Brasserie open for business again. Lovely people and absolutely fantastic food. I have really missed their collection of outside tables and chairs and made that exact point to Michelle this morning as I inadvertently walked into one of them. Maybe my head was in the clouds as usual, or maybe something beyond the clouds was having fun at my expense?

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13/8/2020 0 Comments

After the heat, the cold slight of day

Can anyone tell me who said this: “I have been up against tough competition all my life. I wouldn't know how to get along without it.”

The answer is at the end of this article for those who feel the need to scroll down.

Most people will prefer to take their time, just as they do in our sweet shop, reading words on jars of boiled sweets – establishing which are vegan or sugar-free – or flavours of chocolate or fudge (salted caramel is still our best seller), but some will jump to conclusions.

A second question: can anyone remember the ice cream wars of East Glasgow in the 1980s? A violent turf war, it provoked outrage in those communities because ice cream vans were being used by rival gangs to sell drugs and stolen goods. Families were intimidated and people died. The hapless Strathclyde Police were given the nickname "the serious chimes squad" as a result.

You may think I have been sucking on a Victory V before writing this (see last week’s piece) but I can assure you that I am as calm and collected as a small child ensuring that their pocket money goes as far as it can on their pick n’ mix selection, whilst also providing for as much variation as possible.

I mention ice cream because Michelle and I were caught up in a dispute this week that at one point threatened to blow our cornets. A local ice cream seller told us just after lockdown of his attention to set up a permanent location by the Elgar Statue and that he had applied for a street trading license to do so.

We put in an objection on the grounds that families, struggling as we all are, would exit the NCP Car Park or hit the High Street after visits to the cathedral and see his site before ours. The inevitable choice would be ice cream or sweets, and that this would give him an unfair advantage.

We were ourselves planning to bring in a small ice cream selection to the shop, but floods and virus led to such large financial losses that it had been put on hold. Being asked to pay full rent during lockdown, and a return to very high business rates next year, things are not looking good.

Our fellow trader subsequently announced, triumphantly, that his license had been granted and we told him, as we did previously, that this would hasten our seemingly inevitable decline as a business.

People seem to think we are part of some international chain when, in fact, the reality is that we are a small independent business, into which we have ploughed our life savings as a semi-retirement project, with all the risk and reward on our ageing shoulders. Our margins are wafer-thin at the best of times but, despite this, we still love being a small part of the Worcester business community.

We pay a flat fee each month in order to trade as ‘Mr Simms.’ We are unable to move our business online as the new owners of the Mr Simms brand from Hong Kong forbid it, and actually market sweets in our area from their own shiny, new website (which they launched at exactly the moment their own High Street franchisees had to go into lockdown).

So, it is true that we are feeling squeezed but we had not expected Worcester News to run a story – without our knowledge or consent – in which they took elements of our formal objection and prevented them as quotes from Michelle and I. Nothing was inaccurate but nothing was agreed with them in advance either, and we were not asked for permission to use such quotes in their story nor even given the opportunity to comment. Is lazy journalism merely a cover for some other ice cream war that we don’t know about? Just to be clear: we only sell Strawberry Kisses, not the Glaswegian variety.

Many people jumped to their own conclusions about this – as some of you will have done here.

We have no problem with competition at all – we regularly tweet about and welcomed our neighbours - House of Coffee - back to the High Street, even though they sell cold drinks, as we do.

We opened, fully aware that Hotel Chocolat already had a store just down from us (though actually it pays dividends hearing people with very thick Black Country accents pronouncing their brand name in a distinctly non-French style!)

Wilko (almost directly opposite our shop) provides pick n’ mix sweets as well as cold drinks, but we remain on very good terms, providing their staff with free packets of sweets during lockdown when we came in to the shop to prepare deliveries (which people were hugely grateful for) and, subsequently, slush cups to cool them down, rather than trying to hide away from the fact that we are all trying to make honest livings.

So, instead of crying over spilled milk bottles, we are looking forward to a little girl’s birthday party in the shop next Friday, and our ‘blind tasting’ session outside the shop the week after, as part of Worcester Festival.

I suppose what is missing in all of the heat this week is common courtesy - or maybe we live in a fantasy world, not unlike the author of that opening quote: Walt Disney.

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6/8/2020 0 Comments

Do you remember Victory V’s, those small liquorice-flavoured lozenges that pack a big punch? If not, you’d probably have been in good company in the mid-nineteenth century when they were sold as medicinal sweets containing a curious ingredient called chlorodyne, which itself was a mixture of chloroform, tincture of cannabis and laudanum. When you woke up, that whole experience would probably have been nothing much more than a technicolour dream in Victorian monochrome…

We still sell quite a few of these sweets in the shop and I was looking at them this morning, thinking about all those memorable battles in which we have come together as a country and won – often against overwhelming odds. It feels a bit like that at the moment doesn’t it? The main difference being that we are fighting a silent and invisible enemy (poetically, a sort of ‘Trumpinverse’), but the main similarity being that we are all in this together, for the duration.

I read with great interest that Theresa May’s husband was understandably to be given a knighthood for, well, being married to Theresa May. Jo Johnson - who few ordinary people like me had ever heard of (I actually thought he used to be a snooker player from Bradford) – for some reason becomes a lord. For Michelle and I our long hours will always be rewarded with cups of tea; thankfully we sell tea in the shop so are unlikely to run out of either tea or sympathy. As I say, we are all in this together.

I must be feeling a bit nostalgic at the moment – possibly due to my love of history or working with a retro brand – but do you remember Green Shield Stamps? I recall, at the ripe old age of about five or six, urging my Dad to stop at the garage so that we could get yet another rewards roll. I hadn’t quite understood that you had to pay money first and, this being the mid ‘sixties, had to then patiently sit and wait while he attempted to fill the car with exactly the right amount of pounds, shillings and pence he had in his pocket, not to mention petrol.

We offer rewards in our shop too – smiles, jokes and lots of laughs – and usually have offers in-store. Currently we are offering two boxes of Bonds liqueurs for £5.00 as opposed to £3.99 each. Our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/MrSimmsWorcester) is the place to go for news of all our latest deals.

We sell gift vouchers too, so if you fancy giving someone a £5 or £10 or £395 gift, do ask us and we’ll happily oblige. A gentleman came in over the weekend with one such voucher from November 2018. In these troubled times that almost seems like pre-history doesn’t it? After quizzing him about the cave in the Malvern Hills he must surely have been living in, we established that he had forgotten all about it (we won’t tell his wife) and it had been through several revolutions in the wash.

On such small events, the great history of our sweet world turns.

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30/7/2020 0 Comments

There have been a lot of environmental changes lately, haven’t there? Social distancing, alcohol on hands rather than in mouths, and all of us looking like bandits about to attack wagon trains in westerns (yes, I really am that old).

We experienced a big downturn in visitors to our shop when the wearing of masks became compulsory last Friday; family groups especially were more reluctant to browse as the ‘barriers’ to doing so seemed too high. Thankfully – a bit like semolina – we all get used to the less savoury things in life and are mercifully able to return fairly quickly to sweet equilibrium. It’s all about balance really: risk and reward; Mega Sours or Sugared Almonds.

Sunday morning was beautiful. Whether you believe in the God of all Creation or scientists in uncannily white coats, there was no fake news about the clear blue skies, against which birds soared – finding their warm thermals in the gentle breeze, which brushed refreshingly against my face.

Outside the shop was gathered a group of largely middle-aged singletons, sitting on fold-up picnic chairs along the middle-edged strip of Worcester High Street. It always amuses me how hard the middle-classes work to look as though they are streetwise and edgy – a bit like Pineapple Cubes in comfy berets. My mum always told me to ‘scrub up’ but these people seem to believe that to ‘scruff up’ is the new norm.

Apparently, they worship a new Swedish goddess called something like Gertie Glum-Berg who has decreed that that humanity is facing an existential crisis arising from climate change. My own understanding of existentialism was that humans define their own meaning in life, making rational decisions, regardless of outside pressure. Presumably, that is why one of their unkempt disciples came in (backwards, via a hedge?) with a less-than-nuclear family (begat at Greenham Common I suspect) and asked us, without even a hint of irony, if we had a spare plastic jar in which she could house her caterpillar.

Instead of looking upwards and feeling the warmth of the sunshine on their perfectly coiffured heads, these people seemed determined to stare at their leather sandals or brogues, resolutely refusing to engage with any other humans (who did exist, honest). A silent protest can, unfortunately, very quickly look just a bit smug. One sharp-dressed young warrior took the rational – and indisputably brave - decision to just glare at me through the shop window, for pretty much the whole morning, through his expensive plastic sunglasses.

It started to rain later and so, committed to lunch dates as they were, the protest group dissolved like so many gingerbread men. One of their number did then come into the shop but he was from a splinter movement, following a different Scandinavian deity called Halva, from Finland. They have been making soft liquorice since 1931 and, despite these changing elements, we have plenty of boxes of plain and salt ‘licorice’ in stock.

Please do not misunderstand me: we operate a near zero waste policy in our little shop and continue to try to cut plastic to a minimum; I deplore any kind of pollution (especially of minds) and heartily applaud the harnessing of natural energy resources. I also respect the right of everyone to have and to express their different views - we debate the issues of the day with our lovely customers regularly in our shop, over copious amounts of tea, and sometimes coffee too.

I wore a CND badge throughout my time at university (my favourite/only jumper disintegrated long before the badge did) and banned my mum from buying grapes from the Cape for years, but I never looked down my nose at other people and I still don’t.

I may not be worth very much these days – but neither am I insufferably worthy.

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23/7/2020 0 Comments

Masks, Zorro and the nonsensical wars of independents

Michelle had just sold a pick n’ mix jar to a lady this afternoon (who actually came in for toffees) when she got into a conversation about masks. The lady - like so many of our customers this week - was concerned about the timing of the government’s latest instruction on the wearing of masks in shops like ours.

“Why have they backtracked on their earlier advice, and why did they decide a few weeks ago that masks would be necessary, but not for another three weeks? What do they know, that we don’t?” she exclaimed, “It’s nonsense, and I blame Nicola Sturgeon.”

Now, in an era of mixed bonbons I have to say that there were more than just the two questions in her maiden speech.

I think the government has backtracked because the road ahead is a bit too scary: climbing ladders is OK if you have a head for heights - but sliding down jelly snakes – what a great ride!

I think the timing is due to something I learned from a senior civil servant this week: ‘Proper Planning Prevents Poor Processes.’ To be honest, the man was a bit of a P**** but he had a nice red, silk handkerchief with a taxpayers’ coat of arms on it.

In terms of what the government know that the rest of us don’t, I would just point to a jar of chewing nuts.

Nicola Sturgeon does what Nicola Sturgeon always does: talk in sweet, slightly patronising tones, about why Scottish independence - masquerading as a panacea for all ills - could easily be achieved if only Maynards Bassetts would put the liquorice back into Midget Gems.

After a debate worthy of Question Time we put a note out on Facebook and Twitter to try and reassure customers that Friday is indeed M-Day but that for anyone who would prefer not to wear a mask or come into the actual shop, we will happily come to the door and serve them on the pavement.

That doesn’t mean they will have to kneel down and pick up Gummy Bears from the gutter – there will still be bags – but people just need to wave to attract our attention!

One such gentleman has already done so. We heard him galloping up Fish Street before tying up his horse outside The Farriers. Tall and dark, with an interesting moustache and flashy sword, he stood just inside the door and announced:

“My name is Don Diego de la Vega. I have been fighting in the Gloucestershire wars of independence down south, and seek my long-lost daughter, Elena. Have you seen her?”

Michelle spent a quick three hours going through her pictures on iCloud before shaking her head sadly.

“Not to worry,” our nobleman declared in a brave, very grown-up way. “I saw the tweet and thought I’d pop over but, before I put my mask back on, could I perhaps buy some Milk Duds?”

Here was a man who wasn’t afraid to wear a mask, but also recognised that eating sweets can be difficult if you don’t sometimes make exceptions.

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I am a writer and historian with a passion for sweets and football (not necessarily in that order!). I write fiction and non-fiction and, after working in the media for over 30 years, now run a sweet shop with my wife, Michelle, trading as Mr Simms Worcester. I also write about the history of sweets in a series of blog posts: 'A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Sweet Shop.'

Our shop is situated on the corner of Worcester's High Street and Fish Street - hence the title of this blog. I will be writing a weekly piece on thoughts and developments both in the world of sweets, the High Street and Worcestershire in general. All thoughts are my own.

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Masks, Zorro and the nonsensical wars of independents

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