Wham, bam, thank you... Abbeymead?
Anyone remember the 1980s sensation that was Wham? No, no, I'm not talking about George Michael and his 'what-does-he-do-exactly?' ex-sidekick Andrew Ridgely, but those once huge (and hugely popular) raspberry flavoured Wham! chew bars.
Many are the dentists they have kept in business over the years and quite a few friends and colleagues can testify to having lost fillings to these sticky menaces in their youth. Me too, which is why I really should have known better over the bank holiday weekend.
It happened that recently the topic of Wham bars came up in conversation at home. My girlfriend, who has clearly led a more sheltered life than I, couldn't remember them.
I enthusiastically recalled a day around about 1983/4 when, as a boy of nine or 10, I opened the front door to see one of my friends from my street standing there grinning. "Look at this" he exclaimed, and suddenly a car-numberplate sized chew bar in blue wrapping encompassed my field of vision.
It was the biggest chew bar I'd ever seen and Mr Patel's shop (in Heath Road, Hounslow - yes it's still there) was selling them for 10p. A bargain I thought, and so began the first of many purchases.
Anyway I was telling my partner of my surprise to see these bars still on sale at our local shop in Molesey, except now they are considerly smaller and a shadow of their former self. I decided to buy one to show her, and also for the nostalgia of it.
They used to be famed for having crunchy bits in them, but now the bits are nearly all vanished, presumably to keep the cost to a minimum. So I'm eating this bar and suddenly I thought, there's a crunchy bit in this sweet after all.
Oh dear. It's not the sweet at all, but part of my front tooth! In childhood I broke my tooth by being in the wrong place when somebody swung a tennis racquet, but I'd had it filled and that filling had been happily in its place for 25 years...
No longer. So now I'm feeling foolish that as a grown man of 35, with two children, I'm still a) eating Wham! bars, and b) losing fillings to them!
Thank goodness to those able professionals at Abbeymead dentists in Chertsey who repaired the damage a couple of days later. Their £45 fee seemed a small price to pay to feel normal again, but in hindsight that could be the most expensive chew bar I ever bought. Perhaps I'll stay off them in future... for a while at least.
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Steve Bax
Web Editor for the Surrey Herald
Don't feel too bad, I did the same on a Mars bar and fractured my arm wearing Heelies which I was intending to proove to another photographer that you can be over 30 and still use them.
Hospital for the next 2 days for me.
I recall with 'Toffo's' having to get a teacher to un-glue my teeth and I had welded them shut with the confectionary when I was about 9 also come to think of it.
I also recall getting Sherbert Fountain in my eye (the sherbert part) when I pulled out the stick too fast and it hurt loads.
then we have my many cuts from Crisp Sarnies where the crisp sliced its way through the bread and strait into my Gums at a friends birthday party. FUN
Kids sweets can be dangerous in many way lol.
They are changing the containers for Sherbert fountains now though to a Waxy outer case/plastic. Just to let you know!