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Rowntree's Fruit Gums

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Rowntree's Fruit Gums were round fruit-flavoured sweets, like very hard jelly and they needed a lot of chewing. One side was flat, the other side had bumps on it.

Fruit gums feature in one of my earliest memories. It was Christmas, the year I was four, so it would have been Christmas 1970. Among my gifts were a doll's house and a tube of fruit gums. I can remember picking out all the purple fruit gums and lining them up along the edge of the upper floor of the dolls house. I can't imagine now why I was doing it, but it remains one of my most vivid early memories.

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Do You Remember Rowntree's Fruit Gums?

Do You Remember Rowntree's Fruit Gums?

  • Anonymous user
    on
    A treat was having these in a little box rather than a tube which you seemed to only be able to get when you went to the pictures. At Christmas you could get one of those big tubes too. In truth I preferred Fruit Pastilles and still have the habit today as my dentist will vouch.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    Agreed Marks. They tasted more fruity then. But does anyone remember the boxes? All those shaped fruits? I loved the red and black ones and a box of those always made my Christmas. They were very expensive........dread to think how much they would be now but I do miss them so much
  • Anonymous user
    on
    Indeed, they're not what they once were. The stick-to-your-teeth consistency has gone, and nowadays they're more like a very firm wine gum - harder than most gum-type sweets, but not as hard as a true fruit gum should be. A similar thing has happened with Lion Sports Mixture - Now that they're made by Maynards, they're softer, and with a different texture. Bring back the old recipe, if you please! I wish people wouldn't fix things if they're not broken.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I can feel them now. There was a certain feeling you got with your teeth when trying to chew these. I was given the option of either those or Fruit Pastilles when I was younger (my mum reckoned that there was too much of a selection for a young lad to choose) and always went for the latter.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    Went through loads of these as a kid used to save the black ones till last (my faves),if i had to share a packet (heaven forbid)i used to take turns with sister to see who got the black ones, she liked the green ones so some swapping went on, oh the simple times of sticky sweets in summer,they were easier to eat when softened by the summer heat.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    Oh yeah! Rowntree's were good. I preffered the pastels because they didn't stick to your teeth so badly or make your jaws hurt so much. Great stuff though!
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I loved these when they were proper fruit gums loved the black and red. You always got sore teeth and they stuck round your teeth like mad. No where near as good now they have changed them and made them soft gums

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