Mysterious People

As some of you may remember from one of my earliest posts, I have been known to sometimes listen to Val Doonican records …

For those of you still reading, I’ll continue.

I suppose the word ‘records’ ages me somewhat as so much music is streamed these days isn't it? Or at least in CD format. I still love putting vinyl on the turntable though and being connected via the stylus to a completely different world.

A lot of our visitors and customers obviously feel the same way when walking into our little sweet shop as it takes them back to their own childhoods but also the stories told to them by parents or grandparents who have long since left the stage.

They tell us about money saved on bus fares and invested wisely on Refresher Chews. One lady bought £10 of them this morning and promised faithfully to ration her haul to one per week – as though we were going to check up on her!

Liquorice Catherine Wheels evoke a lot of memories that just keep coming around, and those seeking Liquorice Root Sticks are as thrilled to find them as the Tudors must have been when using them as toothbrushes.

It’s nice to share fond experiences of sweets that really remind us about people. It’s not nearly so much fun when people remind us that experiences can be equally sour.

On Saturday morning a fairly elderly man refused to come into the shop while a couple of other people were inside. We do monitor numbers closely at this time but usually consider that if the rule of six is prescribed by highly paid civil servants then it’s probably good enough for us. Anyway, he and a young boy only entered when the shop was completely empty.

He proceeded to tell us how we didn’t care about our customers; didn’t understand how long two metres actually was (again, we thought the suits in their London clubs had agreed to one metre being the standard, yet we still mark our floor out in quadrants of two square meters), and that, cheerfully, we would shortly be closed down.

He concluded his treatise by informing us in a commanding voice that he was a special advisor to an important government department in London, as though this would render us silent in breathless awe and servitude.

Michelle and I aren’t really like that. We pointed out quietly that although he observed merely a shop girl and boy in front of him, we did in fact have four degrees between us – including a Master’s degree each – were members of Mensa and spent many years living in and working for major national companies in London, before starting up our own businesses - therefore we did have some small idea of what we were doing ...

Even if he had listened for more than a second, our messages were quickly drowned out in his head by him then shouting at the top of his voice that he ‘didn’t want an argument.’ I can understand that; I’m quite sure that he wasn’t used to people arguing with him.

I actually felt very sorry for the little boy who turned out to be his son, and who just wanted a bag of Jelly Brains from the Pick n’ Mix counter.

Later the same day a middle-aged man and his wife bought one of our lovely new Big Wheel tins of salted caramel fudge. It was for his 97-year old father’s birthday. I was happy to explain how the other fairground tins in this collection – the Carousels and the Helter Skelter - contained shortbread or English toffees, but it was the Big Wheel he particularly wanted.

He explained, a little tearfully, that his father was blind and less concerned about the contents yet would love to run his hands over his birthday present to remind himself of the shape of a Big Wheel at the fairground he loved to visit when he was just a small boy. I wish I could have asked his father about the sweets he might also have enjoyed in the late 1920s or early 1930s.

As Val sang in his version of the classic:
“One little fellow is friends with the wind in the willows
All of them children and all are mysterious people”
 
Finally, I’ve had a lot of nice comments regarding last week’s blog about animals in the shop. Can I just update you to say that we have now added Scottie dogs and sheep in shortbread tin form; also, to reassure some readers, no animals were hurt in the making of this sweet life.