Gums, pastilles, Kennedy, cowboys, green ones and questions…

Okay so which did you prefer, Fruit Gums or Pastilles?

Do you like the hard, round, bumpy gums that stick to your teeth when you simply can’t resist the urge to chew, or do you prefer that sugary cushion of soft pastille that squidge in you mouth as you chomp them – and again, how can you resist the urge not to chew?

Six year old me was eating a pastille when news of the assassination of J.F. Kennedy came through on our black and white telly back in 1963. How do I know? Easy, my mum was doing the ironing. She always ate pastilles when she was doing the ironing and she passed me a pastille as the news was announced – a yellow one (she didn’t like yellows).

I’d never admit that to my friends at the time though. No, not the ironing or Kennedy. The pastille thing. Only girls, wets, and Red Indians ate pastilles in our road. Boys (big boys that is) ate fruit gums - just like the cowboys.

I noticed recently that there are more green fruit gums in a packet than any other colour and very few red and black ones. Why is that? Green are my least favourites both in gums and pastilles and I’m sure that there used to be more of my favourite blacks in the past. Is it the price of blackcurrant juice I wonder?

And why do they make fruit gums into silly little fruit shapes when they put them in boxes rather than keeping them round and bumpy? They simply don’t taste the same as miniature fruits and the boxes of pastilles are just pastilles, the same as the ones in the packet - even though they don’t taste quite as good from a box.

And why do I still stand in the shop hesitating on whether I should buy gums or pastilles and usually ending up buying both? Perhaps that’s it! Perhaps that’s why Rowntree make both gums and pastilles and put them in paper wrapped tubes. Maybe they do it to make us indecisive and hesitant, forcing us to buy both so that they can make even more money.

So many sticky questions…

So which is it for you Rowntree’s Fruit Gums or Rowntree’s Fruit Pastilles? Cowboys or Indians? And what were you doing when John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated?