Let me loose in a sweet shop

When it comes to confectionery, the British have got it licked, says Emma Hughes, who finds that pocket-money sweet treats have never looked more tempting, no matter how old you are

- Emma Hughes

WHICHEVER way your political compass points, there’s no denying we’re living through interesting times. The world stage has become a topsy-turvy Wonderland in which impossible things routinely happen before breakfast. How nice it would be, we might be forgiven for thinking, to go back to a gentler, sunnier time when things were straightforward— childhood, in other words. And nothing semaphores a return to innocence like a bag of sweets.

Other countries have a tradition of sophisticated confectionery (think of baklava, with its 1,001 layers of honey-drenched filo pastry), but ours has always been about simple pleasures, swirled and striped like circus tents or deckchairs. It’s cheerfully uncomplicated stuff. When you pop a boiled sweet into your mouth, you can switch off your critical faculties completely for 10 minutes and that, we can all agree, is a good thing.

In spite of sugar getting the thumbs down from successive governments, sales of confectionery are rising. In 2015, the British bought £1.157 billion worth of the stuff, which is the equivalent of each of us spending £18. We’re rediscovering our sweet tooth and the classics—household names such as Bassett’s Allsorts—are more popular than they’ve ever been.