Christmas treat

One of our regular customers asked us to get her some plain chocolate, stem ginger sweets. Her Christmas treat is a box of these with a tipple of Whiskey on Christmas afternoon.

I can remember that we always had a box of sugar almonds on Christmas afternoon which my Uncle always gave to my mother as a present - she didn't like them so we got them to eat!

I always had a rule that my children could have the chocolates off the Christmas tree on Christmas afternoon. However a certain daughter and a dog would nearly always eat them well before and we could never find any left. :-)

What sweets did you/do you have as treats at Christmas?

Delivery day

Busy day today, out delivering corporate hampers in Sheffield for a decorating and finishing company who has chosen to give their clients sweets instead of alcohol.

Bex in shop today catching up on the weekends sales, replenishing stock and changing the window display. Pop in and say hello if you are passing

Traditional drinks

We decided that perhaps people may like to try the old fashioned traditional drinks at Christmas. The smaller bottles as "Mocktails" - non alcoholic cocktails. They are great served cold with crushed ice, guess the grown up children could add their favourite tipple to them.
The larger bottles are cordials and can be diluted with still or sparkling water, hot or cold as well as soda water. They certainly are a blast from the past.

I remember my Grandma having bottles of "Blood Tonic" in her cupboard ready to dish out when she thought we looking pale!

Bex and Vicki in the shop today, while we are stewarding in the church for 2 hrs this afternoon as the Christmas Tree festival. The 30 trees were decorated by businesses and groups in Helmsley, each one depicting a Christmas Carol or song. Pop along and see if you can work out which carol ours is based on.

Family links

On opening the shop I started to think about my family history. Coming from York, I knew I must have some connections to confectionery apart from the one I know about. My Uncle worked in the accounts department at M A Cravens all his working life. I can remember when the factory was on coppergate. When it moved out of town, the site was taken over and the archaeologists moved in - this then become know as "the coppergate dig", uncovering many remains from the roman and Viking past. You can now visit it as the Jorvik centre.
Cravens had the sweet concessions at the Great Yorkshire Show for many years. As soon as I was old enough I went, with my cousins to work the three days and loved it.
Cravens tends to be overshadowed by the two big boys - Rowntrees and Terrys, however its Sugar Almonds, Mary Ann Toffees (named after Mary Ann Craven) and the old English mints were very popular.
I suspected that somewhere in my family I must has a connection to Rowntree, as most families did. I received a copy of my paternal granddads death certificate yesterday. He died in 1940 so my dad never really knew him. It turns out he was a Confectionery labourer at "the cocoa works".

Busy day in the shop today - Bex is there all day and I am helping out from 12 so pop in and say hello.
Have you guess who first made Love Hearts yet?

A teaser for you

A teaser to start with today - Which sweet manufacturer first made Love Hearts? I'll expand on the answer tomorrow.
Lots of great feedback about the website - thank you. I have acted on some of the suggestions and asked Blue Box Support to make a few changes.
The sweets that go in the gift boxes can be changed and altered so give us a call or drop us an email BEFORE you order and we can make the substitutions.
We can sell any of the sweets mentioned by individual bags, again just contact us. I didn't want to clutter the site up with over 300 sweet varieties so if there is something you would like delivered we can do it.
Not a lot of Christmas stock left with any of our suppliers or in the shop so of you need anymore stocking fillers or Christmas sweets let us know quickly.
Pat in the Helmsley shop today, busy putting away all the sweetie stock I dropped off last night.

Exciting day

Today is the day we finally go live with the website, after lots of hard work - not just by me. I need to thank Ian at Blue Box Support for putting up with all the changes and creating the online store in conjunction with the bank. The site looks great.

There is another reason why it is an exciting day, today we go to sign the forms for the funding for a second shop. Helmsley has done so well and is such a great shop to work in so we decided that it would be nice to have a couple more. Helmsley will always be the favourite for me as its such as special place. The second shop is in a rather large town so will be very different. I never expected to be starting this brilliant business at my age!

Pat is in the Helmsley shop today as Bex has a day off to go Christmas shopping and I think there might be a bit of ice skating too....

Nostalgia

When you walk through the door of one of our traditional sweet shops you will be transported back to your childhood and happy times.

All of us have very treasured memories linked to particular sweets, perhaps you went with your granddad to dig the allotment and shared a bag of toffee or maybe you enjoyed dipping your liquorice stick or lolly into some sherbet/Kali with your friends in the playground.

Did Santa always bring some sugared almonds for your mum? When watching your favourite team did you chomp on some peanut brittle or perhaps you had to buy extra strong mints to disguise smells on your breath!

Here in Yorkshire most of us have a link to a traditional sweet manufacturer. Anyone who grew up in the York area will remember Rowntree's, Terry’s and of course Craven's run by the matriarch Mary Ann Craven, but did you know Maynards had a factory in York too. Who can forget the smell of chocolate in the early mornings over the city.

If you grew up near Pontefract than Liquorice will be your main memory. Pontefract cakes are world famous and still a favourite sweet in our shop. Joseph Dobson is still based near Leeds at Elland, manufacturing by traditional methods – their Yorkshire mix and mega lollies are a best seller.

Further down the country into South Yorkshire you come into Bertie Bassett territory.

The aim of our shops is to trigger all these happy memories and our mission is to ensure you leave the shop with a bag of your favourite sweets and a smile on your face.