21st Century Dodos: A Collection of Endangered Objects (and Other Stuff) (24 page)

The final decision was a combination of impulse purchase and mental arithmetic. You wanted to get as many sweets as possible for your money, but the real gems on the counter were often that little bit more expensive.

For reasons of clarity and modern comparison, we shall assume that we are talking post-decimalisation currency for this next bit.

In the early to mid-’70s we still had the halfpenny piece, and sweets such as Mojos, Black Jacks, and Fruit Salads were priced at ½ pence each (I am sure I can remember these being two for a ha’penny at some point but perhaps I was imagining that). So you could ram your bag full of 20 halfpenny chews and have enough sugar to keep you going for the whole weekend. Which was fine, but lacked a certain variety.

On the other hand, if you went for too many tuppenny sweets, such as Refresher chews or lollipops, then you could be going home with just five items and lots of empty space in your bag.

So, the best strategy was to include a combination of price points, genres (chews, chocolates, sucky sweets, etc.), and sizes.
It was not an exact science, but it was often possible to exit the sweet hop with the near-perfect selection.

Here is my suggestion for the ideal 10p mix-up bag:

You can still find mix-up selections in many corner shops and newsagents, but the prices have really shot up, enough to make your eyes water more than a quick shot of lemon sherbet.

Dodo Rating:

Look-in

La-la-la-la-la
Look-in
(as the jingle went) was a weekly magazine for children. It was the kid brother (not kid sister, casual sexism was alive and well in the ’70s) of the
TV Times
. As such, it only featured ITV shows and the stars of them, but managed to include pretty much every iconic character that appealed to children across the network. It included interviews, features, comic strips, quizzes, competitions, and the ubiquitous letters page.

It ran for 23 years from 1971 and original copies are much sought after by nostalgic 40-and 50-somethings. For many years the magazine would sport a painted cover by Italian artist Arnaldo Putzu. His film poster style illustrations of Richard O’Sullivan, Lee Majors, or the cast of
Space 1999
were very much of the time, so as
Look-in
evolved and became more modern it ditched them in favour of photographic covers of pop and film stars.

A typical issue might include ‘Bionic Woman’, ‘Black Beauty’ and ‘On the Buses’ comic strips alongside interviews with Marc Bolan or Mick Robertson from
Magpie
. The
How?
team could show you how to construct a tug boat from bits of old rubbish or there might be a behind-the-scenes feature on
Tiswas
. Ed ‘Stewpot’ Stewart manned the ‘Newsdesk’ page (which was presumably written by a journo and then had Stewpot’s mug stuck at the top) and a different celebrity would, allegedly, select the letters for the letters page each week.

The magazine was essentially a propaganda rag for ITV, which may seem a bit dodgy now, but this was back in the day when there were only two TV listings magazines –
Radio Times
for BBC and
TV Times
for ITV – and neither could list the other’s programmes. So that made it all OK.

Look-in
ceased publication in the mid-’90s (I’ll be honest, I am surprised it lasted as long as that), but will be remembered most for
being around during the golden age of television in the ’70s and ’80s, and is fondly remembered by many a kid who grew up at the time.

Dodo Rating:

Sweet Tobacco

It may be hard to believe now, but the thing I am about to describe really did exist. And it was sold to kids.

Strands of coconut, dusted with cocoa powder and sugar, wrapped in a cellophane wallet, and designed to look like a packet of Golden Virginia tobacco.

And it was bloody great.

You would take a pinch, pop it into your mouth, and see how long you could resist before chewing. Once you had scoffed the lot, a damp finger could excavate any last remaining crumbs or grains of sugar from the packet.

Sweet tobacco vanished from our sweet shops once some jobsworth with a bit of clout noticed that encouraging children to purchase anything remotely resembling cigarettes was probably not a great idea. This may be an unpopular view, but I am not aware that the banning of this delicious tobacco-imitating foodstuff has actually led to any decrease in the numbers of smokers.

Unlike candy cigarettes, which simply changed their name to candy sticks and stopped colouring one end in red, sweet tobacco was not able to rebrand itself and smuggle its way back onto the sweet shelf, probably because it looks, well, just like tobacco.

But rejoice, fellow pretend smokers, there are a few select places that you can still get hold of the stuff. It now comes loosely packaged, no more Golden Virginia wrapper, but tastes just the same. It is well worth tracking it down.

And then feeding to your kids.

Dodo Rating:

Mandy

Mandy
was one of many popular comics from the D. C. Thompson stable and was around, in the form of weekly comics and later as an annual, for 40 years from 1967 to 2007, which is quite an impressive run.

In its early days,
Mandy
was primarily a collection of serialised stories, often with recurring characters, taking the form of comic strips and text stories. Many of the plots would be seen as very clichéd and old school nowadays – nurses with a heart of gold, tragic orphans, etc. – and this was definitely no place for boys, but it clearly holds fond memories for many women across two, and possibly three, generations.

After going it alone for nearly 25 years,
Mandy
joined forces with the
Judy
comic in 1991 and they were both subsumed by the bigger, beefier
Bunty
in 1995.
Mandy
annuals continued to be published every year until quite recently, but without a weekly comic to support them, one can only assume they were purchased by original
Mandy
readers for their offspring. Or perhaps purely for nostalgia.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with that.

Dodo Rating:

Marathon

Packed full of peanuts, and with a solid, dependable name that suggested you could run for 26 miles and a handful of yards on just one bar.

And then it went all international on us and changed its name to Snickers.

Which is just plain silly.

(See also
Jif
and
Opal Fruits
.)

Dodo Rating:

Opal Fruits

From 1959 to 1998, they were made to make your mouth water.

Since 1998 they have been called Starburst.

Which is just plain silly.

(See also
Marathon
and
Jif
.)

Dodo Rating:

Playhour

Sonny and Sally of Happy Valley were the stars of
Playhour
, a comic for younger readers that ran from 1954 to 1987. These two happy kids with their little pet lamb featured in a comic strip told in rhyming couplets, just like the original Rupert the Bear annuals, and also replied to any letters sent in by readers.