While new sweets and chocolates seem to be appearing on the supermarket shelves every week these days, our love of confectionery is nothing new.
Perhaps 50 years ago Easter eggs didn’t appear in January and Christmas goodies weren’t being stocked by September - but the appetite was always there.
Sweets and chocolate play an important part in our youth (and adult lives, in moderation, of course) and are often tied up with our feelings of nostalgia.
At LondonWorld, we recently asked followers of our Facebook page which chocolate doesn’t taste as good as it used to. Galaxy and Cadbury products were both mentioned. And Caramac bars “now taste like plastic”, according to one person.
Recipes have changed over the years - but then so have we!
Awareness of our health has grown over the years, but there is still a time and a place to allow yourself a treat. So, here’s to the joys of the sweet shops, celebrated with pictures from across London in years gone by.
1. Friends
A young girl in Battersea enjoys a chocolate bar and a joke with a friend in 1965. (Photo by John Philby/Keystone Features/Getty Images) | Getty Images
2. Mouth watering
In 1952 a little boy finds it hard to contain his excitement at a giant Easter egg display in a sweet shop in Regent Street. (Photo by Monty Fresco/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images) | Getty Images
3. Wimbledon
American tennis players (left to right) Billie Jean Moffitt (later King), Jane Albert, Sue or Susan Behlmar and Carole Caldwell (later Caldwell Graebner) share a box of chocolates at Wimbledon in June 1963. (Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) | Getty Images
4. Rush on sweets
Children buying sweets at a shop in New Eltham, in 1949, on the last day before they went back on the ration. (Photo by Warburton/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images) | Getty Images