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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Alison McNaught and has been added to the website on behalf of Jean Marris with her permission.She fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Sweets to the sweet: farewell!

I was eight years old when WW2 began, living in a quiet village on the Gower Peninsula near Swansea.
Sweets and chocolate were one of the many items on ration, and how we craved the missing sugar!
Dad was serving in the army in North Africa and later in Italy. He made friends with a number of American service people through a mutual interest in putting on concert parties for their own and each other’s troops. Singing, dancing, stand up comedy and in Dad’s case conjuring and playing the musical saw!
Two or three times we got food parcels from those kind Americans. These exciting packages seemed like mini Aladdin’s caves to my brother and me. Instead of precious metals and jewels there were unheard of luxuries such as tins of luscious mouth watering chocolates. You had to open the tins with a little key which wound back a thin strip, thus forming a lid.
Inside was layer upon layer of seductive, delicious, darkly delightful and sinful looking indulgences. Some with a tiny piece of crystalised fruit embedded into them, to suggest which particular ecstasy lay concealed within. Their curved smoothness invited a caress before a choice was made. Other chocolates were decorated with curls, swirls and whorls done in yet more chocolate. A few dotted here and there were wrapped in the dull glow of gold, silver or copper foil, suggesting mysterious, esoteric pleasures. The ‘key’ describing each toothsome morsel was a joy to read.
Each time we thought we’d started on the last layer, another would seemingly miraculously appear — a veritable box of delights.
Finally, however, it really was the last layer. Sadly my brother and I each picked up our last precious confection, reposing in its individual dainty fluted cup of black paper.
We were sitting in front of a blazing fire and listening to the wireless, made drowsy by the light of the fire and distracted by the radio, I …can you believe it? …I threw the chocolate into the fire and kept the paper cup in my hand!
I cannot describe my chagrin. While it would be an exaggeration to say that the trauma has left me with permanent emotional scars, I have never forgotten the incident. I wonder how many children of the 21st century, can begin to imagine the deprivation I felt.

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