Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Today in Venice I saw some space pencils in a sweet shop.

This instantaneously took me back to my junior years at CH when I used to go to the tuck shop regularly to buy these strange and apparently rare culinary delicacies. Yum yum.

Actually the first several times that I bought space pencils, I didn't realise that you could eat the outside bit as well, and I spent ages squeezing the stuff out from the middle. What an exciting way to spend one's afternoon freetime. It certainly was when you were 11.

I remember how some people used to go there about three times a week and always came back with a big wooden box filled to the brim with sugar and fat. I think if money was no object I would have done the same!

yes, its amazing the amount fo sugar you could get for little money.

When i see rhubarb and custards i think of tuck shop, i used to go there get a diet coke,twix and some rhurbarb and custs for my dad!

What are/were space pencils?

blondie95 wrote:yes, its amazing the amount fo sugar you could get for little money.

The French, amazingly, have a customs duty free allowance of 5kg per person because it is so cheap in Andorra. ISTR it is about 2 euros (say £1.50) for 6 kilos.

The French are sensible - if you don't take your full allowance of something - say olive oil - then they let you have a bit over the limit of something else. Therefore goods are sold in volumes different to customs allowances (hence the sugar weight anomoly) but what I cannot get my head round is these 2 foot high bottles of Scotch - must be about 10 or more litres when we are restricted to 1 1/2 litres each per trip.

midget wrote:What are/were space pencils?

Here is the only picture I could find on Google (it's quite a small picture):

http://www.brackenbankstores.co.uk/acatalog/pencils.jpg

They're very sugary long cylindrical 'pencil'-shaped sweets. The inside of them is just a pure sugary fruity mélange (there are many different flavours of this haute cuisine to introduce to your palette), while the outside 'skin' (which is always a different colour from the inside part of the masterpiece) is harder and requires ripping apart with your teeth, but is still extremely tasty.

Before I went to CH, I had never heard of them, and I had never encountered them anywhere else until today.

They were always priced at 10p per pencil. Throughout my time at CH, a lot of things in the tuck shop went up quite a lot in price, but space pencils always stayed at 10p.

The colour on the outside signifies the flavour, the green is sour apple etc.

I think you can get them in Woolworths and the cinema where they sell pick'n'mix, but I have never heard them called spacepencils before.

Bring back the farthing-chews, also known as 'BlackJacks'

4 for 1d. Can't be bad.

And fruit salads, same price

Mintoes, Murraymints, Wagon Wheels...

J.R. wrote:Bring back the farthing-chews, also known as 'BlackJacks'

4 for 1d. Can't be bad.

Jo wrote:And fruit salads, same price

Now 10p each, but MUCH bigger!

AndrewH wrote:

J.R. wrote:Bring back the farthing-chews, also known as 'BlackJacks'

4 for 1d. Can't be bad.

Jo wrote:And fruit salads, same price

Now 10p each, but MUCH bigger!

We`ve had the small ones in tuckshop - but they`re now 1p each

Mrs C. wrote:

AndrewH wrote:

J.R. wrote:Bring back the farthing-chews, also known as 'BlackJacks'

4 for 1d. Can't be bad.

Jo wrote:And fruit salads, same price

Now 10p each, but MUCH bigger!

We`ve had the small ones in tuckshop - but they`re now 1p each

Fantastic! There was never anywhere else with better value.

Thanks for the information, Wuppertal. In my youth we not only had to work out how to get most for your money, but for your sweet ration as well.

space pencils?
is that what they're called?
my chums and i just called them "those-sweety-things-with-the-white-stuff-in-the-middle-in-like-different-colours-and-stuff"
you can get them in variations of size now
i had one the length of my arm once!

Urgh-My-Pancreas wrote:i had one the length of my arm once!

Maybe that's why you're pancreas is urgh!