ANYONE who grew up in the 80s remembers the heady thrill of expecting to get shitfaced on Top Deck shandy. Here are some other childhood favourites that were thrillingly adult.
Top Deck
The drinks industry’s attempt to wean seven-year-olds onto alcohol. After a hard day riding your BMX round the housing estate, you’d kick back with the Top Deck and laugh at the immature younger kids drinking Orangina. Sadly it would have taken about 600 cans to get any alcoholic effect, so drunken hi-jinx never ensued.
Candy cigarettes
Somehow acceptable at the time, a similar attempt to get seven-year-olds onto the fags. You’d lean against the school wall during break and nonchalantly chew on a candy cigarette, exuding the coolness of Steve McQueen. Except he didn’t eat his fags, and they didn’t taste of sugar cut with industrial amounts of chalk.
Silk Cut cigarettes
In the 80s, shopkeepers would often sell individual cigarettes from a packet under the counter. Silk Cut’s appeal lay in the fact they were the weakest brand on the market. Many a youngster gravitated to them after trying to smoke John Player Special and spending an hour coughing their lungs up.
Black Magic chocolates
Forrest Gump claimed you never know what you get in a box of chocolates. He’d clearly never been given a box of Black Magic by his nan for Christmas, because you were guaranteed dark chocolate filled with adult stuff like coffee and truffles which you hated. In fairness your parents were taken in too, thinking the cheap, black-and-red cardboard box was impossibly ‘posh’ and classy.
Turkish Delight chocolate bars
Another Christmas gift from elderly relatives with no clue about what youngsters wanted. Back in the 80s, Turkey was still a faraway exotic place, not a familiar stag and hen destination. This strange variant on actual Turkish delight was a layer of bland milk chocolate followed by a mouthful of cheap perfume off the market. Ah, the mysterious East.
