Sweets and their place in society.

Lollies, sweets, confectionary, whatever you like to call them have soft spot in both kids and adults alike for a very long time, while their face and style has changed, their allure surely hasn’t.

Back in the goldfield days of Bathurst and Ballarat (using my sovereign hill knowledge here) olden lollies were all the rage, excessively sized and colourful lollypops, humbugs, barley sugars but above all it was consistent in that hard candy was what the 2 years olds back then screamed for.

Today, kids are still screaming for sweets, as well as iPod’s, and the latest justin Bieber book, shirt or perfume (seems to me those kids want a little bit of everything). But no longer is hard candy the rage, sure it was the flavour of the 19^th century, but not the 21^st.  Rather these lads and lasses cry out of animal shaped gummies, chocolate, sherbet bottles and lollypop dummies and rings.

It’s a shame that today’s kids really forget the pleasures of old world candies such as fudge (it’s around but more of  niche ting these days).

But there are places and a demand for old world lollies, one of my favourite places to go is the Beechworth Sweet Company in Beechworth, just off the scenic, breathtaking and gasp inducing Great Alpine Road.

Walking into the store it feels more like an emporium to treats not a store, the hardened floors, and colour of lollies from the roof hanging down to the counters abundant it puts the fun back into lollies.

As well as having mainly old world stuff there is also the current, it mixes the old and the new so that when you leave the store with goodies a) the children are in delight and b) you feel like a big kids all over again.

It’s a store I cannot have a bad word about it is so very beautiful, making you, the reader appreciate lollies as more than a bargaining agreement or something from the supermarket.