Spangles

Spangles were boiled sweets made by Mars in the United Kingdom from 1950 until 1984. They were translucent, fruit flavoured and instantly recognisable: a rounded square shape with a circular dip on each face, sold in a striped paper tube.

A ration book bargain

Spangles arrived in 1950, when sweets were still rationed in Britain. To buy sweets you needed points from your ration book as well as money. Spangles needed only one point, where other sweets and chocolate needed two. That bonus, together with clever marketing, made them hugely popular. The American actor William Boyd, who played the cowboy Hopalong Cassidy, fronted the adverts with the slogan Hoppy's favourite sweet.

The flavours

The regular Spangles packet contained strawberry, blackcurrant, orange, pineapple, lemon and lime, and cola. At first the sweets were not wrapped individually; later they came in waxed paper and then cellophane, inside a tube striped in orange red and silver.

Over the years there were many single flavour packs too, including acid drop, barley sugar, liquorice, peppermint, spearmint and tangerine. Mars even made a white mint Spangle with a hole in it, to take on the Polo mint.

Old English Spangles

For grown ups there were Old English Spangles, in a black, white and purple tube with striped wrappers. The usual line up was liquorice, mint humbug, pear drop, aniseed and treacle. In 1964 a mystery flavour competition invited buyers to guess a new blend; the answer, revealed that September, was fruit cocktail.

Gone, but not forgotten

Spangles were discontinued in 1984. They came back briefly in 1995, sold in Woolworths among other shops, with just four varieties: tangerine, lime, blackcurrant and Old English. Their last relative, Tunes, which shared their shape and wrapping, has also gone.

But the memory has never faded. Spangles have become shorthand for post war nostalgia, alongside space hoppers and Raleigh Choppers, as in the phrase do you remember Spangles? In 2008 they topped a poll of discontinued brands that British consumers would most like to see revived. They turn up in songs too, from the Kinks to the Fall.

More lost sweets

Mars also made Opal Fruits and Pacers, both of which changed or disappeared: see Opal Fruits and Pacers. For the rest of the sweets people still miss, see sweets you can no longer buy.

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