Midgit Gems

[Mike Reed]

I remember my father's shop selling white elongated sweets shaped like a cigarette and with a red tip. Ideal for posing and they were quite nice too.

 

[Cav]

I think it was called Spanish gold.

You are correct, my memory has confused sweet tobacco with a Cadburys chocolate called Old Jamaica!

 

[monkfish]

Nippits

https://nippits.com/

 

[PhilofCas]

I remember my father's shop selling white elongated sweets shaped like a cigarette and with a red tip. Ideal for posing and they were quite nice too.

Same here, mum and dads shop did too, yes, naughty but nice.

 

[TheDecameron]

Same here, mum and dads shop did too, yes, naughty but nice.

Parents with a sweet shop?! My god, that would have been a dream come true. Wait till they went through the back…

 

[PhilofCas]

Parents with a sweet shop?! My god, that would have been a dream come true. Wait till they went through the back…

It was a general shop, bit of everything, tbh we (3 brothers) didn’t have to ask/hide anything, we just ate what we wanted, but in those days we all were active, none of this PlayStation sat in bedroom all day malarkey, so none of us were overweight.

 

[Mike Reed]

Wait till they went through the back…

This was the early fifties, and there was an opening between my younger sister's bedroom and mine. It led into next door, which dad used as a store house. We used to creep downstairs after parents were abed and raid the sweet section (it was a newsagent's & grocer too). We then had a midnight feast. How my sister's teeth survived and mine didn't, I'll never know. Believe me, there wasn't much difference between a butcher and a dentist back then. A visit then was literally a gas !

 

[billo]

I remember my father's shop selling white elongated sweets shaped like a cigarette and with a red tip. Ideal for posing and they were quite nice too.

And at Christmas there were foil covered chocolate cigars!

 

[Del monaco]

Jesmond black bullets for me please.

My grandad used to buy those.

 

[Del monaco]

I used to like butterscotch tablets but they stopped making them.

 

[TheDecameron]

This was the early fifties, and there was an opening between my younger sister's bedroom and mine. It led into next door, which dad used as a store house. We used to creep downstairs after parents were abed and raid the sweet section (it was a newsagent's & grocer too). We then had a midnight feast. How my sister's teeth survived and mine didn't, I'll never know. Believe me, there wasn't much difference between a butcher and a dentist back then. A visit then was literally a gas !

I hope you’ve contacted the accountants and made good the losses?

 

[Mike Reed]

I hope you’ve contacted the accountants and made good the losses?

Think it was an amalgam of the two, Dec.

 

[James Evans]

The beginning of the end for Midget Gems!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-59981811

(the really important news story of the day obvs)

 

[wacko]

It was a general shop, bit of everything, tbh we (3 brothers) didn’t have to ask/hide anything, we just ate what we wanted, but in those days we all were active, none of this PlayStation sat in bedroom all day malarkey, so none of us were overweight.

And your teeth ?

 

[PhilofCas]

And your teeth ?

Fillings, left right and centre.

(I still like a nice chew now).

 

[Rug Doc]

M&S ban the use of the word ‘Midget’

Marks & Spencer: Midget Gems change name after academic's campaign https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-59981811

it’s a form of ‘Hate speech’, supposedly..

Lions better not change the bloody name.

EDIT - sorry James didn’t see your post! Can you bloody believe it.

 

[matt j]

Can we call them midget gems any more?

Called it. Ha!!!

 

[raysablade]

My daughter has the same condition as the academic who "campaigned" for this change. It is important to note that the work isn't banned, it is still in the dictionary. All that has happened is that people who are hurt by the way this term is used are asking politely if we would mind consigning it to history. No doubt M and S, having given the issue some thought, have decided to be sensitive and polite despite the marketing damage this will cause them.

Its worth noting with regard to the word "midget" that you would not use it to describe a short statured friend or member of your family. It is reserved for a specific group of people and aims to mark them out as other than "us".

 

[Brian S]

A friend of mine was greatly flattered when her husband, another friend of mine, after many glasses of red wine and some exotic smoking mixture, referred to her midget gems.

 

[gintonic]

A friend of mine was greatly flattered when her husband, another friend of mine, after many glasses of red wine and some exotic smoking mixture, referred to her midget gems.

mine refers to her GG maxi gems as the horses.....