My Notebook

Jelly Baby Gal

One of my all-time favourite sweeties as a child were Bassetts Jelly Babies. And I mean the original flour dusted version, not the more recent chewier Maynards imitations. As anyone who is a regular reader to this blog might know by now is, most of my favourite things have came to me by way of my family. Jelly Babies are no exception. This particular love was gifted me by my gran, Mary Anne. My dad's mother.

There are a few things I particularly remember about her with a fondness, and they were:

  1. Her fondness for piggy banks (she had dozens of them)
  2. Her proclivity for boiling a kettle on an old WWII paraffin stove she kept way too close to her armchair
  3. Her prized roses, which were older than me at the time
  4. And her love of Bassetts Jelly Babies
She always had a crumpled bag of them at hand. I was convinced the bag filled up magically overnight, as there always seemed to be an endless supply whenever I visited her. Of course, it became a ritual. We would sit and chat about the day, I'd make tea for her, and we'd eat a jelly baby, or two, and I would help her in her tiny postage stamp sized garden, pruning and keeping her roses in check. Always getting a small bunch to take home for my mother, who adored the smell.

For me, the best part of these after school afternoon visit was, of course, the jelly babies. And so, long after my Gran had passed, I continued the tradition by buying a quarter pound of JBs every week to keep my connection to her, and keep those memories alive.

Fun Facts:

Did you know, Jelly Babies were invented in 1864 by an Austrian immigrant working at Fryers of Lancashire, and were originally marketed as "Unclaimed Babies". By 1918 they were produced by Bassett's in Sheffield as "Peace Babies", to mark the end of World War I. Bassett's themselves supported the "Peace Babies" name.

Also, more recently, I think it was the 90s? Bassett's allocated individual names, shapes, colours and flavour to different “babies”: Brilliant (red; strawberry), Bubbles (yellow; lemon), Baby Bonny (pink; raspberry), Boofuls (green; lime), Bigheart (purple; blackcurrant) and Bumper (orange).

Jelly_Babies

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