Child Of The 1980's

In 1982 Musical Youth burst onto the charts with their first hit, Pass The Dutchie, a song which I still vividly remember to this day for its cool reggae beat and bizarre lyrics, especially the bom-bom-bom-bom-bom-bom-biddly-bom bit.  The fact that the song was sung by a group of kids, the youngest of which was around my age at the time, also helped them win popularity from me.

The band formed in 1979 and consisted of Michael and Kelvin Grant, Dennis Seaton and Patrick and Freddie “Junior” Waite.  After Pass The Dutchie put them on the map with a number one UK chart song they had further hits with Youth of Today and Never Gonna Give You Up (nothing to do with the Rick Astley song).

After these songs Musical Youth’s popularity started to wane, but they came back with a cover of Desmond Dekker’s 007, which led to their final hit Sixteen.  In 1985 they broke up when Dennis Seaton left the band, but both he and the Grant brothers have remained in the music industry.

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Since all the images I could find for Burton’s Fish and Chips were tiny photos of the more recent packing, I thought it was time to break out the old art package and knock up another of my terrible illustrations.

Burton’s Fish and Chips were little biscuits which were, unsurprisingly enough, shaped like little fish and rather stunted looking chips.  They were sold in packets the same size as your average packet of crisps, although not many shops seemed to stock them.  I always remember we had to go to Superdrug of all places to buy them.  I remember the packs as being decorated with a newspaper motif, despite the fact our local chippy had ditched newspaper wrapping years earlier.

They were obviously supposed to be fish and chip flavoured, although this basically amounted to a beigey brown coloured dusty covering which tasted very nice, but not really very fishy or chippy.  After eating a packet your fingers were usually coated with specks of the flavouring, so you got to enjoy licking your fingers too.

I seem to recall that Burton’s also made a sister product entitled Chicken and Chips.  As you may have already guessed, in these the fish shaped biscuits were replaced with ones shaped like chicken drumsticks, and the flavouring now tasted unlike chicken instead of unlike fish.

Another great snack from the eighties which, I’m presuming, is no longer with us, as I haven’t seen them in shops (not even Superdrug) for ages.