The sweet taste of success (From Echo)

The sweet taste of success

11:29pm Wednesday 6th February 2008 in

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ONCE they were found on every street corner. They were run by little old widow ladies.

They dispensed sherbet lemons and gobstoppers in white paper bags at threepence a quarter.

They kept afloat on a tide of children's pocket money. And they were a core part of everyone's childhood.

By the Seventies, however, the traditional sweet shop was all but extinct, seen off by a double-whammy of supermarkets and high property prices.

Now, however, sweet shops are making a comeback. In a way previously unknown in their long history, they have become almost trendy.

The success of the revitalised sweet shop is partly based on nostalgia, partly on a craving among the public for the simple things in life.

Two positive f-words also play their part in the revival. Sweet shops are fascinating, and sweet shops are feelgood.

Typical of the new breed is Sweet Memories, in the centre of Rayleigh. Like all the best traditional sweet shops, it occupies a cubbyhole space, tucked between two much bigger premises in Eastwood Road.

A megamarket this isn't. Space is so small customers frequently form a queue that stretches out of the door.

Yet this compactness plays in its favour. Every inch of wallspace from floor to ceiling is covered with large jars of sweets.

The sweets create a riot of colour, while the evocative names on the jars add to the allure. It comes as no surprise when co-owner Steve Laurence says: "People come in here just to look at the sweets and read the labels."

Sweet Memories opened in June 2007, in good time to build up to the Christmas market.

"We've done brilliantly, right from the start," Steve says. "We've exceeded expectations. We're in business alright."

Sweet Memories may look and feel like a Fifties sweet shop, but Steve and his business partner Dave Simmons are the diametric opposite of little old lady proprietors.

The two strapping lads worked together in the production department of a national newspaper in London, which Steve doesn't want named in case they end up featured in it.

When they were made redundant, they set up as market traders.

"A friend of mine in Milton Keynes sells sweets and it seemed they were a good line to be in," says Steve.

The sweet stall thrived. Opening a shop was the natural progression.

"It also got us out of the cold," Steve says.

From the start, Steve and Dave played the nostalgia card.

The name Sweet Memories, where the sense of an olden, golden past is as important as the product, was carefully chosen.

"A lot of people drop by just to say how glad they are that a shop like this is back again," Steve says. "They miss shops like our one and greengrocers."

Children, the traditional mainstay of sweet shops, make up only about 25 per cent of customers. The rest are adults who bring along their memories as well as their appetites.

Business has been boosted by a special bespoke feature offered by the sweet shop boys - the find-a-sweet service.

"Customers come in and they have happy memories of a particular sort of sweet. Perhaps they haven't come across it for years," Steve says. "We'll use every contact we know to try to find them.

"We often come up with long-lost sweets where the internet has failed."

On one of the few spaces in the shop not occupied by jars of sweets, there is a list containing the names of items located thanks to Steve and Dave's sleuthing.

Even this diligent pair occasionally fail, so if anyone knows the whereabouts of toffee cushions, crispets or kola chews, they would love a tip-off.

Many customers buy sweets as a novelty gift for the man or woman who has got everything. One customer, Sue Newton, from Thundersley, says: "We've given my mum and dad presents like a digital camera and even a holiday before.

"Then we bought them a jar of mixed sweets here. I don't think we've given them anything that seemed to cause quite so much pleasure. You could see it on their faces."

For the most part, Sweet Memories remains a time warp. Step inside and you enter a comfort zone from 50 years ago.

The bestsellers today are old-timers that were also the bestsellers 50 years ago. Topping the hit list are sherbet lemons, army and navy, sweet peanuts, kola cubes and cough candy.

Even sweet shops move a little bit with the times, however.

Sweet Cigarettes, once a firm favourite, are not on offer and a whole shelf is devoted to sugar-free sweets.

On the whole, though, Sweet Memories is a true recreation of the smells, colours, textures, names and, of course, tastes, of yesterday, and customers revel in it all. Indeed, there may be only two people in town who find Sweet Memories' products strictly resistible.

"I used to eat sweets," says Steve. "But now I'm surrounded by them, I've stopped altogether."