Crisps

bitbat's recent post about crisps has made me ramble...

I'm originally from Leicester, so Walkers Crisps are part of my heritage! :-)

Having said that, I grew up in Ashby de la Zouch, which had two huge factories owned by United Biscuits: a biscuit factory and a "snack" factory. The latter made crisps and other snacks (i.e. Skips, Hula Hoops). Everyone knew someone who worked at these factories, so cheap (slightly dodgy) crisps and biscuits were commonplace. In fact, the factory shop legitimately sold huge cheap boxes of broken biscuits. My childhood featured these heavily!

I've eaten strange pink biscuits and weird shaped crisps no one else has ever seen, as they were being tested locally. They were generally pretty awful, but it was the 70s, so we ate them anyway. Have I ever mentioned I grew up poor? ;-)

Ooh, I've just found a page devoted to the dodgy E-number-tastic snacks of my childhood:

http://tv.cream.org/specialassignments/bestbefore/arksnack.htm

My junior school had a tuck shop at breaktime that sold many of these. They had travelled less than a mile from the factory further along the road. I went to school with a boy who claimed his father had 'invented' Outer Spacers, as he was the food technologist who worked out how to make them.

Strange Childhood Traumas

At a party last night I met another man who hasn't sat in an inflatable plastic chair since 1971. Both of us haven't done so due to this precise incident:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXrAK6sUZ_0

One day soon I will have to let evie_petrol watch that series. I'm sure something in it will scar her for life, in a small but strange way. It's part of her cultural heritage for that to happen! :-)