Long before the days of sugar taxes and draconian sweetie control legislature, Glasgow was a veritable playground of all the best teeth-decaying sweets the United Kingdom had to offer.
Walking into the tuck shop after school was like walking into an Egyptian bazaar - with the rich multi-coloured boiled gems, jars filled with luminescent rainbows of sweeties -whether they be hard, soft, or somewhere in between - and hidden treasures dotted all over the store.
Forget thinking about your subjects at school, or what you wanted to be when you grew up, the hardest decision any young Glaswegian had to make is what type of sweetie they wanted - the choice for a bairn in a sweetie shop seemed unending.
Soor Plooms, Kola Cubes, Chocolate Bananas... how could one small human possible decide? Whatever your choice, the feeling of opening that wee paper bag and popping your chosen sweetie into your gub had to be one of the best feelings of childhood.
Hours would be spent in school thinking of how to convice your parents (or better yet granny or grandad) to take you into the tuck shop after school.
Here is a selection of some of the sweets you’ll remember if you grew up in Glasgow:
1. Creamola Foam
Creamola Foam was a soft drink - produced by dissolving raspberry, orange, lemon or cola granules in water to create a foaming, fizzy, luminous beverage. Production of the drink began in Glasgow during the 1950s - and Creamola immediately become one of Scotland’s most iconic exports alongside Tunnock’s Teacakes and Irn-Bru. The brightly packaged drink is a staple of many Scots’ fond memories of childhood - and when production halted in 1997 many were heartbroken. Photo: Third Party
2. Oddfellows
Oddfellows were certainly an odd sweetie - most of the oddfellow’s of the 20th century came from King’s Sweet factory in Wishaw. The production of the hard lozenge style sweets (infused with cinnamon, lemon or strawberry flavours) would see the sweetie dust have to be extracted from the factory through a chimney - the workers shrouded in a cloud of misty Oddfellows dust would be given a wide berth on the bus home. (Pic:Saltire Sweets)
3. Soor Plooms
Soor Plooms were a playtime favourite of yours truly - the boiled green sweets certainly were sour. Popping more than one in your mouth at a time was sure to see your cheeks sucked between your teeth. (Pic: Saltire Sweets)
4. Tunnock’s tea cake
Tunnock’s teacakes remain reassuringly familiar - long may the Uddingston biscuit reign as the king of teatime biscuits. Photo: PAMELA MAXWELL