Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History Who remembers these old sweets?

Old-fashioned sweets have made a big comeback in recent years - sherbet lemons, fruit salads, flying saucers, etc. But does anyone remember a variety of mixed sweets that were called ‘green peas, fat ducks and new potatoes’?

As far as I recall, they came in a big jar (like most sweets back then) and were sold by weight - two ounces, a quarter, and so on. As the name suggests, they were shaped like peas, ducks and potatoes.

I can’t remember anything more about them, except a vague recollection of them being sold in a shop in Birkenhead Market in the mid 1950s - early 1960s.

I’ve Googled them and looked on retro sweets websites, but can find no trace of them.

Yoller!!! Not that iam that old ( honest) but never ever heard of them. With you not finding any trace either, do you think you were dreaming?;

It did occur to me that I might be imagining them, but the name sticks in my mind. Maybe I'm getting them mixed up with some other sweets - there were so many lovely ones around back then.

Hi Yoller, when I was a lad I used to serves in my Nan's sweet shop in Union Street, Tranmere, I thought she sold every kind of sweet but I don't recall the sweets you mention, perhaps the shop you went to made their own sweets on site.

YES, Yoller. I can remember them. ‘green peas, fat ducks and new potatoes’, in fact it's not so long ago that I asked someone else if they remembered them.

We used to pretend play tea parties with them, so it would probably have been mid to late 50's. If Lud can't remember them, he must be older than us and suffering amnesia. All the sweet shops sold them !

Oh its granny and yoller reminicing, let's leave them to it now they've found each other.

I think you are getting them confused with school dinners .

You must have gone to a posh School Salmon, there was never 'duck' on our school dinner menu. Lucky you

Thanks for the confirmation that they did exist, Granny. It means I'm not going senile just yet!

I wonder if they were a locally-made sweet, which might explain why they're not available today on these retro websites?

I can't remember what they tasted like, but I'd love to find out again.

They are mentioned in both of these links, so perhaps not a local produce.

http://historyofthorne.com/publications/keelgirl.html

http://fozyks.blogspot.co.uk/2004/05/thoughts-from-4th-flour-november-1965.html

Thanks for those links, diggingdeeper - really interesting and helpful.

The description of the sweets from the Thorne website gives us a great idea of what they looked like ...'the ducks were white sweets, shaped like ducks, the peas were small round green sweets like coloured pills and the potatoes were oval pieces of marzipan dipped in cocoa to make them brown.'

The writer is talking about buying them as a young girl in about 1907, so they were obviously around for quite a while after that. And, as you say, they don't seem to have been local to Wirral.

The young girl bought a ha'porth - a halfpenny worth. A halfpenny wouldn't have got you any weighed-out sweets when I was a kid in the mid-1950s (most sweets seemed to be sixpence a quarter). But it was enough for four Fruit Salads or Black Jacks ... and they were delicious.

I grew up in Liverpool, but I vaguely remember them being like a candy. I don't remember the potatoes being dusted in cocoa but they may have changed 50 years on.
I do remember marzipan sweets we made at home as children and dusting those in cocoa powder.
Thanks DD, just makes all the doubting Thomas's realise that Yoller and I are not so daft as they would like us to be.

Tea cakes(sweets) were like a flat toasted coconut, and tiger nuts. Yummy !

See what you can find here. I have found the 'tiger nuts'

The oldest sweet shop in England/world

https://www.oldestsweetshop.co.uk/

When I was a tiddler in Kent there used to be a van that came round selling dinners like peas potatos and faggots . Faggots also known in some places as savoury ducks.so the sweets may have copied that. Think you can still get the "ducks" in some butchers--just a big meatball with herbs

No, I still can't remember them, perhaps I couldn't see them in my Nan's shop because the gas mantle needed changing.