Former Bushey sweet shops remembered in nostalgic look back

It was our daily ritual. On the way to school, at lunchtime and on the way home too! What tooth-tingling treats awaited our excitable, young taste buds.

Soft foamy, pink coloured and raspberry flavoured shrimps – a must-buy!

As were sherbet fountains, lollipops, flying saucers - rice paper or foamed corn starch filled with a sherbet powder – and penny chews. So much to choose from! Aniseed balls, bon-bons, spangles, love hearts, peanut brittles, Jubbly frozen drinks – and huge, hard balls of jaw-breaker chewing gum! You picked as much or as little as you want. And the shopkeeper would put them all in a white paper bag. But they wouldn’t stay there for long. Soon enough, the same would be said for our canines and molars!

Before the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the delights of home-made sweets and sugar confectionary were available in general high street grocers and bakers, and in the hand carts of costermongers and peddlers. But by the 1900s and into the 1930s, dedicated local sweet shops - often family-run businesses - started to appear, lined with wooden shelves and rows of large glass jars filled with boiled sweets, toffees, and liquorice.

The 1950s until the early 1980s was the golden era for the newsagent, tobacconist, and confectionery chain shop. Setting down their swinging or revolving Corona Lucozade and Schweppes pavement signs on every suburban high street, including Bushey.

One of the most often-remembered, because of its yellow facade and big blue lettering was Bunces Newsagents on Sparrows Herne – affectionately named by all the local kids as “Bunty’s”. Throughout the 1970s, it soon became the local go-to shop, most of all, for pupils to buy half-penny ‘cola bottles’ and ‘fruit salads’ - a type of raspberry and pineapple flavoured chew - on their route to and from nearby Ashfield Junior School.

“You would get a lot of sweets for 10p in those days”, it’s often said, as former schoolkids look back. One wistfully declaring, “I would go to the sweet shop in on my way to Ashfield school, bought my 2 oz of cola cubes, pineapple chunks and pear drops and also sometimes, rhubarb and custards. Sweets don't taste the same now! It's probably my taste that has changed but buying them weighed out from a jar in a paper bag tasted delicious”.

Further down the high street was another much-loved sweet shop. Sitting right next to Pallet's Bakery on Park Road, and remembered by one former ‘schoolboy customer’, “going there to get my sweeties - mostly the sugar cola cubes and pineapple cubes”.

A “sweetie” shop was never too far away when you needed a sugar rush, as it’s referred to today! Near the corner of Bournehall Road was Ting-a-Lings. A fondly remembered local newsagent and general shop as an after-school stop to fix your sugar cravings! It was also one of the first in Bushey to rent out video cassettes.

Another huge favourite was Orchards in Harcourt Road, across the road from Little Reddings school, where favourite buys with 1970s schoolkids were sugar mice with a string tail, Spangles, Texan Bars - nougat and toffee coated in milk chocolate, Victory Vs - liquorice flavoured lozenges, and Hubba Bubba – a less sticky bubble gum.

Also in Harcourt Road was the John Abell sweet shop, much used for spending any pocket money left over on a Saturday morning, according to another former customer, definitely excited by the memory.

“Oh yes, comics and sweets with our 2 shillings pocket money! Loved 2oz Sherbert dips! I picked the sherbet lemons - and cola bottles!”

If your daily journey took you down School Lane – off Sparrows Herne – you could first stop off at the sweet shop nearby Williams Butchers shop then again, further up the lane in a cottage ‘sweet shop’ virtually opposite Merry Hill School.

The magic of the ‘original’ sweet shop experience, luring schoolkids to part with their pennies, reached its sugar-sparkly peak in the late 1970s and early 80s. The independent newsagent, tobacconist and confectioner still continues, of course, holding their high-street ground against the endless mighty burger bar brands, chicken shops and takeaways.