The way we lived in 1949 Part 9

An occasional series showing adverts in the year I was born.

It was ten years since the last world war began and only 4 years since it ended.  And reflecting on that decade Picture Post issued a special edition in which this advert appeared.

I can’t remember Silmos Lollies but I ate myself through enough similar ones.  And like the best memories thinking about Silmos took me back to a tiny sweet shop outside my secondary school where Kay the owner would sell ice cream and if money was tight it was a penny worth of lemon flavoured ice which I think came in some sort of shinny paper bag.

Silmos Lollies were made by Batger who seemed to have started in the 18th century with a sugar millhouse and in the years before the Second World War had two factories in Cable Street Stepney with their own wharfs and shipped their raw materials along the Thames. "The main factory at 566 Cable Street manufactured jams, bakery sundries and confectionary; best known products being 'Chinese Figs', 'Silmos Lollies', 'Jersey Caramels', and 'John Peel marmalade'. The employees at the other factory manufactured 'Harlequin Christmas Crackers', and all forms of cake decorations for the bakery industry.” John Hearle from BATGER - Before & After - Bryan Mawer / John Hearle, http://www.mawer.clara.net/batger.html

 Picture; from the collection of Andrew Simpson