Web Page 3097 26th January 2024 First Picture: Old English Advert

Second Picture; Spangles selection

Third Picture: Spangles Lemonade

Fourth Picture: William Boyd Hopalong Cassidy

Spangles I had not noticed that Spangles had disappeared from our sweet shop shelves. Had you? Spangles were was a brand of boiled sweets manufactured by Mars Ltd from 1950 to the early 1980s. They were sold in a paper packet with individual sweets originally unwrapped but later cellophane wrapped. They were distinguished by their shape which was a rounded square with a circular depression on each face. When Spangles were introduced in 1950, sweets were still on ration, and the price of sweets had to be accompanied by points from one's ration book, but Spangles required only one point instead of the two required for other sweets and chocolate. This bonus, accompanied by effective marketing, made Spangles even more popular. American actor William Boyd was chosen to front the advertising campaign as the character he made famous in numerous cowboy films, Hopalong Cassidy, along with the slogan "Hoppy's favourite sweet" Another slogan was "The sweet way to go gay!" During the early 1970s Mars Ltd commissioned a redesign of the packaging using a ‘funky’ period and appropriate bespoke typeface. The new typeface and packaging designs were created by Neville Uden. Spangles were discontinued in 1984, and briefly reintroduced in 1995, including in Woolworths outlets in the UK, though only four varieties were available – tangerine, lime, blackcurrant and Old English. There are many nostalgic references to them from children who grew up with them. In 2008, Spangles topped a poll of discontinued brands which British consumers would most like to see revived. Today the Tunes brand is the only remaining relation of the Spangles brand, sharing the shape and wrapping of the original product. The regular Spangles packet (labelled simply "Spangles") contained a variety of translucent, fruit-flavoured sweets: strawberry, blackcurrant, orange, pineapple, lemon and lime, and cola. Originally the sweets were not individually wrapped, but later a waxed paper, and eventually a cellophane wrapper was used. The tube was striped, a bright orange-red colour alternating with silver. It bore the word "Spangles" in large letters. In the 1970s, a distinctive, seventies-style font was used. Over the production period many different, single flavour varieties were introduced including Acid Drop, Barley Sugar, Blackcurrant, Liquorice, Peppermint, Spearmint and Tangerine. A white mint Spangle, complete with hole, was produced as a competitor to the Polo mint. The Old English Spangles packet contained "traditional English" flavours. The standard line-up was liquorice (black), mint humbug (brown), pear drop (orange/red), aniseed (green) and treacle (opaque mustard yellow), but other flavours appeared from time to time. The sweets' individual wrappers were striped, distinguishing them from regular Spangles. The tube was black, white and purple, and designed for a more mature and sophisticated clientele than the regular variety. At one point a mystery flavour was released where the wrappers had question marks on them and you would be invited to guess the flavour. The flavour was eventually revealed as Fruit Cocktail. Spangles were mentioned in The Kinks' song "Art Lover", from their 1981 album, Give the People What They Want. In 1977, the British novelty pop band Lieutenant Pigeon released an instrumental single titled "Spangles". The Fall song "It's A Curse" on their album The Infotainment Scan, also includes a reference to Spangles. Stay in touch Peter GSSEditor@gmail.com

Web Page 3095 19th January 2024 First Picture: William Tell

Second Picture; Gessler

Web Page 3093 12th January 2024 Cherry Blossom Shoe Polish First Picture: Cherry Blossom Advert

Second Picture; Shoe cleaner base

Third Picture: Shoe cleaner brushes

Fourth Picture: Kiwi Shoe Polish

When we were kids you could always guarantee on finding a tin of Cherry Blossom shoe polish along with brushes and polishing cloths in a box under the sink in the kitchen. But where did the actual shoe polish come from? Tired of having rub shoe polish off of their clothing in 1906 Dan and Charles Mason decide to create a polish that would last an entire day. They called the product Cherry Blossom Boot Polish and launched it across the UK! Backed by imaginative marketing, the brand quickly became a huge success. In 1911 the Exhibition Centre at the Crystal Palace was hired by the Cherry Blossom company for a day and the gates were thrown open to the general public. Free entry was provided for anybody who brought with them a lid from a Cherry Blossom tin! The event is a huge success and 200,000 visitors produce a mass of traffic unseen in London at this time. Come 1913 and due to Cherry Blossom’s success it was taken over by the Chiswick Polish Company, which was owned jointly by the Masons and Reckitt & Sons Ltd, and between 1916 and 1923 with workers’ welfare high on the agenda at Cherry Blossom, a staff magazine called “Forward” was launched, Shortly afterwards, the company introduced a 5-day working week in 1918 and a pension scheme in 1923 Business was improving and in 1924 the ‘fish plate’ metal opener was introduced and was the first of this type of opener to be introduced. In 1929 the company merges with the Nuggent Polish Company Limited creating a global brand and a year later the company made 50 semidetached houses available for their work force. In 1936 a young girl called Daisy Sander joined the company as a library assistant, she later became better known as the actress Dandy Nichols of ‘Till Death Us Do Part’ fame By the 1960s over 1,500 people were employed by the company. These people didn’t just make and fill polishes though – they also stamped and printed the tins, creating the brand’s iconic packaging. The company’s factories at the time manufactured everything needed on site, just like today! Stay in touch Peter gsseditor@gmail.com

Web Page 3091 5th January 2024 Cars First Picture: Mendac Car Coat

Second Picture; My first Car a Standard 10

Third Picture: Driving Gloves

Fourth Picture: Tiger tail

Here is a page for the lads looking back at our cars of the 1960’s. At this time cars came with very few assessories and we had to buy the add ons ourselves. Very few cars came with built in radios and we had to rely on our portable transister radios with an ariel socket in the back if we wanted music in the car. To make the radio work properly we had to rely on either home fitted ariels fitted through the wings of the car or rely on an ariel that clipped onto the window of the car but this meant a wandering lead inside the car. One of the most popular assesories was the home fitted wing mirror I can remember fitting them myself, one of the major suppilers of wing mirrors was a firm called Wipac. Very few cars came with efficient heating systems or a windscreen demister although a small unit that could be attached to the screen using couple of rubber stickers. This unit was often wired directly into the car battery, not an ideal situation. As time went by the keen motorist could purchase a consul that could be fitted between the front seats and over the handbrake, these units provided an area for the motorist to store small items. There were also units that could be fitted to the car doors to provide storage for cassettes, however these had the big disadvantage of rattling away as the car moved or the door was closed. Another item that seems to have disappeared over the last few years is the undercar paraffin overnight heater. A unit that could be slipped under the engine during the winter months to try to keep the engine warm. Motor clothing was very different, most motorists carried travelling rugs and road atlas’s. My father always insisted on wearing a car coat which he always bought from a company called Mendac. The smart set at the time would never have thought of driving anywhere without wearing string backed driving gloves, I even had a pair at one time for a short time. This was the time when the car accessory shop came to the fore. Shops such as Halfords and Cosham Car Accessory’s were popular and most things for the home motor repairer could be bought there. I remember buying a engine decoking kit many years ago. I squirted the liquid into the spark plug ports and left, as instructed, them over night. The next morning the car was a job to start and it covered the back garden in noxious smoke but made very little difference to the performance of the engine. This was the season for novelties and many of us had comic stickers in their cars along with little triangular stickers stating that we had been to Bideford or Southend. However one of the cleverest advertising programmes came to us via Esso petrol and its put a tiger in your tank campaign. This became so popular that practically every other car that you saw around in the 1960’s had a synthetic tiger tail attached to its filler cap. Life has moved on since those days. Cars are more comfortable with all sorts of built in gadgets including mini tv cameras. At one time I did most of my own maintenance, as many of us did, but today I lift the bonnet of my car and are faced with a mass of engineering which I do not understand anymore. I fondly look back upon the days that with a little ingenuity we could keep ‘old bangers’ on the road for miles and miles. Stay in touch Peter gsseditor@gmail.com