The absolute very first time I ate a packet of Space Dust was in the mid 1970s when I was still at primary school. We'd been through a phase of filling up our break-times with games of "human weebles" but, frankly, we'd got a bit bored of it because no one seemed to get knocked over no matter how hard we pushed them so Space Dust came as a welcome relief.
Unlike our kids, we were so much less advertising savvy in those days. We were told that weebles wobbled but didn't fall down and, instead of the nation's youth replying loudly and in unison, "so fucking what, they're just eggs", we lapped it up and nagged our parents to empty their pockets at the nearest toy shop.
It was the same with Space Dust. Their Marketing Department planted numerous stories of kids sprinkling it on cat bowls or into the open mouths of elderly sleeping relatives and, for a short while, it took over from Jeremy Thorpe as the biggest threat to young people in British society. It was labelled a deadly choking hazard for small children but, to be honest, the only lives in danger appeared to belong to cats or elderly relatives, especially if they happened to be asleep at the time.
Apparently, Space Dust consisted of small bubbles of carbon dioxide which produced the popping sensation and crackling noise. That doesn’t sound like the healthiest of things to put in a child’s mouth but it was the 1970s so there were probably worse options. I bought a modern version of the product from Amazon by accident the other day (‘Fizzwhizz’ – I thought it was something else) but couldn’t get either of my cats to eat it……which was annoying because I had the phone primed to film them and a video poised to go viral, something which, as an over-50, I naturally assume all videos can do….but just don’t understand how.
I don’t know if the formula’s changed but the pack I bought had an ingredients list of ‘SUGAR, LACTOSE, GLUCOSE, ARTIFICIAL FLAVOURING, CARBON DIOXIDE E-290’. Conscious that this might not strike the right chord with modern parents concerned over their children’s diets, Marketing had added the words ‘NO COLOURING USED’ as though that would catapult the product into the 5-a-day category. Sorry, guys, that might have worked 40 years ago but we're wise to your game now.
Back in the day, my other sugar confectionery staples were fruit salads, blackjacks and sherbet dib dabs (I now gather these were actually called 'dip dabs' which I guess makes more sense as a set of instructions but loses some of the rhythmical beauty). All had their downsides; fruit salads were unnaturally day-glo and, at 4 for a penny, were an inexpensive route towards dental decay and blackjacks were similar but with the added bonus of staining your teeth (as well as your mouth and lips) before rotting them. Sherbet dib dabs, and I’ve got to be honest here, were a bit of a faff. The only thing going for them was that you could pretend you were taking cocaine…..though that was both painful and a criminal waste of dib dab.
Sweet shops in the 70s seemed to operate differently from other retail outlets. I'm sure in those days it was generally acceptable to wander around a corner store reading one of the comics you were possibly going to buy and eating the odd shrimp or cola bottle that you definitely weren't. Or was that just me? I have this vague memory of a kindly old lady behind the counter, happy to let the youngsters enjoy a few free treats because we reminded her of her own grandchildren. Clearly, it could also have been a grumpy old bastard who'd phone up the police if we so much as glanced at a curly wurly and would have a panda car screeching to a halt outside the shop just minutes after we'd sauntered out.
My secondary school sweet of choice was Orange Tic Tacs. I would ignore the pleas from the adverts to use the lid to flick them into my mouth because I preferred to eat them straightaway rather than brush the dust and droppings off them once they'd landed on the floor. The idea from the advert was that it made you look cool but I was listening to Adam and the Ants at the time so had NO worries in that regard at all. In fact, I’d worked out that, if I didn’t wash my hair for a week and then popped a hairnet over the back of it at night, my fuzzy fringe made me look a little like the dandy highwayman himself. Add a streak of Sherbet dib dabs to the bridge of my nose and across my rosy cheeks and the transformation was complete.
Adam told us that ant music was for sex people though I don’t think he’d taken a good look at the kids in my school who were listening to his records. The closest they came to being sex people was sniggering about things that wobbled but didn't fall down. ᴀs for me, the only way I fitted the category was if sex people were 14 years old with greasy hair, stained black teeth and powder dribbling from their nostrils.
Next: ABSOLUTE VERY FIRST TIME......GREASE
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