Now, it is no coincidence that we lose our taste for sweeties upon reaching puberty.[2] This is the time when we lose that ten per cent of our sense of colour and sound and smell without our even noticing. This is the time of the stirring loins, when sweeties lose their attraction.

You see, our bodies always know what they need and childhood bodies need sweeties. It is a ‘bodily instinct’, quite removed from the brain. If our childhood bodies need extra sugar, they send a message to our childhood brains. ‘Give me sweets,’ is this message. It is a message that must be heeded. Upon reaching puberty, needs change. Extra starches and proteins are required. ‘Give me beer,’ calls the body to the brain. But, you will observe, it rarely calls this message to a six-year—old.

Our bodies know what they want and what they need. And woe unto those who deny this.

Sweeties kept us healthy. We are living proof of this.

Although we didn’t actually know that we needed sweeties, we knew that we wanted them and curiously much common lore existed regarding the curative properties of certain brands of confectionery.[3]

A popular nursery rhyme of the day may serve to illustrate this.

And how true those words are, even today.

As children, we instinctively knew that the sweetie shop held more in the way of medicine than any branch of Boots. And any qualified chemist who knows anything about the history of his (or her) trade will tell you that most sweeties began life as cures for one complaint or another.

Liquorice was originally a laxative. Peppermint was good for the sinuses. Aniseed helped dispel internal gas. Hum (one of the pnncipal ingredients in humbugs) staved off dropsy, and chocolate, lightly heated and then smeared over the naked body of a consenting adult, perks up a dull Sunday afternoon no end.

And how true those words are, even today.

Our local sweetie shop was run by old Mr Hartnell. His son Norman (not to be confused with the other Norman Hartneil) was in our class and a popular boy was he. Norman was a born confectioner. At the age of five his father had given him a little brown shopkeeper’s coat of his own and, when not in school uniform, Norman was rarely to be seen wearing anything other than this.

Norman lived and breathed (and ate) sweeties. He was to sweeties what the Doveston would later be to tobacco, although he would never achieve the same fame. He would, in later life, receive acclaim for his scientific endeavours, which have been written of in several books and indeed will be written of here.

The Doveston and I befriended Norman. Not that he lacked for friends, you understand. He attracted friendship in the way that poo does flies. But, in the Doveston’s opinion, these were just friends of the fair-weather persuasion. Good-time Charlies and Johnny-comelatelys, buddying up with the shopkeeper’s son for naught but the hope of free sweeties.

‘What that Norman really needs’, declared the Doveston, one July morning, during P.E., ‘is the guiding hand of a mentor.’

‘But where might such a hand be found?’ I asked.

The Doveston showed me one of his own. ‘On the end of my arm,’ said he.

I examined the item in question. It was grubby as usual and black at the nails, with traces ofjam on the thumb. If this was indeed the hand of a mentor, then I possessed two of my own.

‘What exactly is a mentor?’ was my next enquiry.

‘A wise and trusted adviser or guide.’

‘And you think Norman needs one?’

‘Just look at him’, the Doveston said, ‘and tell me what you think.’ I glanced along at Norman. We were all lined up in the big hall, mentally, if not physically, preparing ourselves for the horrors of the vaulting horse. Norman had, as ever, been thrust to the head of the line by his ‘friends’.

He was a stocky, well-set lad, all big knees and podgy palms. And being the son of a confectioner, there was much of the sweetie about him. His skin was as pink as Turkish delight and his cheeks as red as cherry drops. He had lollipop lips and a marzipan chin, butterscotch hair and a mole on his left shoulder that resembled a Pontefract cake.

Norman stood in his vest and pants, having forgotten to bring his games kit. Mr Vaux, all tweed and cravat, blew his whistle. Norman made the sign of the cross, ambled forward, gathered speed, jumped and plunged headfirst into the horse.

The mighty leathern four-legged beasty took it with scarcely a shudder. Norman stiffened, did that comedy stagger which in cartoons is always accompanied by small birds circling the head, and then collapsed unconscious on the parquet floor.

There were no great cries of horror and no runnings forward to help. After all, we’d seen this happen many times and if you ran to help without permission, you got walloped with the slipper.

Mr Vaux called for injury monitors and we all put up our hands, for it was well known that Norman always kept a few toffees hidden in his underpants.

Our teacher did a ‘you and you’ and Norman was gathered up and stretchered from the hall.

‘What that lad needs is a mentor,’ I said.

The Doveston nodded. ‘You’re not wrong there.’

On this particular occasion Norman’s concussion was sufficiently severe to merit a sending home early and so, after school, the Doveston and I went around to his daddy’s shop to offer our best wishes and hopes for a speedy recovery.

It was Wednesday afternoon and the shop was early-closed. We knocked and waited and while we waited we gazed longingly through the front window.

This week it was dominated by a display for a new brand of American cigarette: Strontium Nineties. There were large cardboard cut-outs of fresh-faced college boys and girls, flat-topped and ponytailed, grinning and puffing. Speech bubbles issued from their toothy mouths, with phrases such as ‘Gee whiz, they sure taste good’ and ‘Radiating pleasure, yes siree’ printed upon them.

‘What do you think about those?’ I asked.

The Doveston shook his head. ‘I’ve read a lot about them in the trade press,’ he said. ‘They’re supposedly impregnated with a radioactive element which makes them glow in the dark. The Americans irradiate everything nowadays, it’s supposed to be very good for the health.’

‘They irradiate Coca-Cola, don’t they?’

‘Allegedly,’ said the Doveston. ‘Allegedly.’

He knocked again and we waited some more. I knew that the Doveston’s attempts to adopt old Mr Hartnell had met with no success and I must confess that I did not believe that his intention to become Norman’s mentor was altogether altruistic. But the lure of free sweeties and possibly fags was too much for me to ignore.

The Doveston squinted through the shop-door glass. ‘Someone s coming,’ he said.

Norman’s face appeared before us, somewhat grey and mournful. ‘Piss off,’ it said.

‘Hello, Norman,’ said the Doveston. ‘Is your dad at home?’

‘He’s gone to the wholesalers. Same as he does every Wednesday afternoon and he told me not to let any kids in. Same as he does every Wednesday afternoon.

‘Very wise too,’ said the Doveston. ‘So, are you coming out, or what?’

‘I’m ill,’ said Norman. ‘I’ve got a headache.’