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Smith’s Salt ‘n’ Shake Crisps! Could there ever be a more British idea for a packet of crisps? The crisps that you salt yourself.
OK, at the end of the day all they were was regular old salted crisps, but there was something strangely compelling about opening a packet, rummaging around inside for the little blue sachet of salt, sprinkling said salt over the crisps, then holding the packet closed at the neck and furiously shaking it about in the hope that the salt might just reach the crisps at the bottom of the packet. It was just fun!
The brand was first launched in the 1920’s, making them one of the UK’s oldest types of crisps. They were apparently invented by Frank Smith and sold to pubs in the Cricklewood area of London. Prior to the invention of the “little blue bag of salt”, Smith had provided salt cellars for people to salt their crisps with, but the sachet came into existence simply because people were using too much salt and the cellars were emptied too quickly.
The little blue bag unsurprisingly became the identifier for these crisps, eventually being turned into a little character who appeared on the packets. Strangely he was square in shape, whilst the sachets were rectangular.
I have two very vivid memories of these crisps from my childhood. The first was the day we bought a packet of Salt ‘n’ Shake and found no less than six little blue bags of salt. I needed a drink after finishing that packet I can tell you.
Here is a great British Christmas tradition that is still very much alive today – the big tin of chocolates! Indeed, these days we even have rather more of a choice available to us in this area than we did back in the Eighties with relative newcomers Celebrations and Miniature Heroes.
This entry is about the foodstuff, not the 
Here’s a type of sweet that I don’t remember eating in a long, long time, and I have to say that just thinking of them now makes me want to get a bag to bring back some old memories.
One Cal was a range of soft drinks that, as the name suggests, only contained a single calorie per serving. In fact, I think the range even pre-dated the diet pop that most people would first think of, Diet Coke.
When I was growing up After Eight mints were always considered a rather “posh” chocolate. They came in packaging which just made them feel a little luxurious, what with the dark green colour of the box, the overly fancy carriage clock motif picked out in gold, and the fact that each chocolate was individual wrapped in a dainty little paper pouch.
As chocolate biscuit bars go, you can always depend on the good old Penguin. It gets straight to the point and gives you exactly what you want – chocolate. Chocolate biscuit with chocolate cream filling, all coated in yet more milk chocolate, it might not be anything fancy, but it hits the spot.
Now here’s a range of chocolate bars that I still think of as being luxury ones, but only because back when I was a kid they were aimed at adults and so always seemed somewhat more exclusive than other bars. They always seemed to be tucked away at the back of the newsagent sweet shelves, next to the Bournville and Old Jamaica chocolate bars, which were also not really deemed for kids.
