Last updated 19:46, Thursday, 28 August 2008

THIS WEEK the discussion in the office has somehow got round to the subject of Cremola Foam.

Those of you of a certain age may remember it – a fruit-flavoured powder which came in a tin and which you mixed with water to make what must have been one of the most revoltingly sweet soft drinks ever created.

It was Cremola Foam that put me right off fizzy drinks and I have it to thank that I have rarely drunk them since.

It was while we were discussing a colleague’s serious addiction to a popular brown fizzy drink which comes in a distinctive bottle with a red cap and how it might be contributing to his hyperactivity, that I mentioned the foamy favourite.

Their reaction was akin to that old Bob Newhart record in which he imagines Walter Raleigh reporting back on the discovery of tobacco: “You did what? You mixed a powder in a glass of water?”

I was moved to reassure myself that Cremola Foam really did exist – and found that it has an internet fan club all to itself. Dozens and dozens of folk are out there wondering if it is still made, and if so, where can they buy it (the answer is no and they can’t).

Not only that, further investigation revealed pages dedicated to confections from a bygone age – Penny Arrows, Spangles, Fruit Salad – there are legions of middle-aged folk out there hankering for their childhood favourites.

My friends and I used to walk home from our village school pretending to smoke sweet cigarettes or liquorice pipes and chewing coconut tobacco. Such behaviour these days would be enough to have us snatched from our parents and taken into care and that’s without Social Services knowing that we spent hours on our own out in the fields or looking for tadpoles in the pit dam.

But back to the sweets. Will the children of today have as much affection for modern confections as we had for Palm Toffee, Five Boys’ chocolate or Dainty Dinahs?

I doubt it. My own particular favourite sweet was a pink spearmint bar. It had a sort of honeycomb texture and when you bit it you could have a contest to see who could pull it into the longest strands with their teeth.

You can’t have that much fun with a Snickers.