Sweet dreams are made of this

Gladiators. The Spice Girls. Ninja Turtles. Pat Sharpe.

Mostof the amazing and legendary symbols of our childhood have recently made areturn and finally the comeback phenomenon has reached the world of culinarydelights.

This August Cadbury's chiefs announced that, following a successfulreturn test period in 2007, the one and only Wispa bar is making a permanentreturn to the shelves of the sweetshops of Britain after incredible demand.

I don't think I'm being nostalgic when I say that sweetswere much better when we were younger.

With a rap only second to that of theFresh Prince, the advert song for Um Bongo was as pleasing as the drink itselfand we can now relive that joy as ASDA stock them in select stores.

ASDA havealso proven to be top dog as this year they were the only stockists of the originaland best - Opal Fruits!

We are lucky enough to live in a society where many of ourfavourite childhood sweets still exist today.

Granted, Chomps are no longer 10pand 15 pennies will not buy you Space Raiders, but hey, we can still have themalong with candy lipsticks, love hearts, black jacks and flying saucers.

Sadly, not all sweets have survived to this day and age, andmany of our favourite snacks are now well and truly extinct, the fabled Frufoobeing a good example.

For those unfortunate readers who never experienced such joy,I can only described Frufoo as the creamiest and most strawberriest of fromagefrais served in a round tub with a toy in the middle.

Think Kinder Egg meetsFrubes (but obviously with a good toy and a significantly better taste).

An essentialto any decent lunchbox that will continue to be remembered for years to come.

Another favourite snack that will always be missed is, ofcourse, the BN biscuit.

How it took until the late 90s for society to come upwith the combination of such a perfect biscuit and such a pleasant shape isbeyond me, but let us be grateful that they did.

Perfect in every way, thedisappearance of the BN biscuit remains a mystery as they suddenly disappearedfrom supermarket shelves many moons ago.

However word on the street is thatthey are available in France...

A similarly bleak future faced Lucky Charms as they werediscontinued in the UK, to be sold just in America.

Fortunately for us, a few highend stores (Selfridges being one) across the country have imported them,meaning that they are only available in this country for around £6.99 per box. [-[more]-]

A high price, but if you can remember just how excellent those little pieces ofmarshmallow were then you will agree it is worth every penny.

Many online retailers, such as britishcandy.com andretrotuckshopsweetsdirect.co.uk also strive to bring us many of our childhoodfavourites - including Dip Dabs!

When asked about his childhood, Dave from Wrexham remembersthose times when taste trumped health and safety.

"Candy sticks, or the evenmore convincing chocolate cigarettes were the best. All the visual joys ofsmoking without the health risks and a damn good snack at the same time."

Jon,a student from Manchester talks about the pre-school sweet run.

"For just £1 Icould buy a million flying saucers and that weird stuff that crackled on theend of your tongue. Chomps, sticks of rainbow dust, black jacks and someHubbaba Bubba, all washed down with a Panda Pop and then you'd be sorted for aschool day."

When I was in school, nothing was more satisfying thansuccessfully hitting someone through the art of biting off half of a dollybeadnecklace and pinging it at the back of their neck from afar.

Producing one'sown colourful tasty snow with help from none other than Mr Frosty was a feelingthat was also hard to beat. [-[quote]-]

Not all snacks were available at your local sweetshop, as Hannahfrom Cardiff remembers.

"Everyone knows it - Calpol tasted like heaven and wasdefinitely worth faking extreme illness for. You would think of the worstillness imaginable to ensure maximum dosage!" Genius.

Farley Rusk biscuits areanother perfect example of our favourite non-traditional childhood snacks thatmay not have been available in a sweet shop, but did taste just as good.

Sadly now we live in the era of Jamie Oliver, where peoplecare about menial matters such as artificial colourings and fake flavourings.

Sweetswill never be the same now that we live in an age where the presence of theBlue Smartie can be in jeopardy.

Let us remember the times when snacks were affordableand penny sweets actually cost a penny.

Let us look back and smile - sweets weredefinitely better when we were younger!