When I was a kid there was a shop that had massive buckets of dried food, sweets, pasta etc. You scooped what you wanted into paper bags paid and left. It was called supa scooper, this service is also still available at the market. Now there is a shop by me that has massive buckets of dried food, sweets, pasta etc. You have to put it in containers you've taken with you, or be judged while you ask for a paper bag. You have to wait around for ages while people stroke their chins over simple decisions and when you want to pay the person serving hasn't got a fucking clue because they're volunteering. For some reason one is very exciting and full of self importance and arseholes and the other is just ignored.
I used to eat the sticks of rock I was given by elderly relatives (or very occasionally bought at my request for some stupid reason), but they always tasted a bit gone off. That slight aftertaste of reflux vomit.
I did go through a short phase of buying aniseed balls from Mr Hoskins' little shop while I waited for my lift home from school. But mainly cola cubes.
I'll take pretty much any old school sweets.
The exceptions being pear drops that taste like model glue and those little rose nib things that taste like soap.
Boiled sweets are the worst. It was always a disappointment getting them as a kid. Red liquorice with a white centre and sour sugar coating would be my go to sweet.
When we were kids we’d get our pocket money each week and head down to the local shop. He’d walk out with a bag of cola cubes and a copy of Dandy, I’d have my lemon sherbets and a Beano.
Go tos for me as a kid.
Black Jacks
Atomic Fireballs
Warheads
Fireball Jawbreakers
Red rope liquorice. (the long ones with the hollow centre, not those limp boot laces)