Blackpool Rock

I suppose I had better be a bit careful in writing about Blackpool as it is just down the road and most, if not all, of my colleagues on the Dead Good Poets site live there. So the most neutral thing I can think of is that hard lettered rock. I must have had one at some time or other and maybe in Gt Yarmouth or Brighton or other sea side resorts. I was more of a toffee apple sort.

There are various stories about how the first idea to make this form of rock but it seems the idea did originate in Blackpool. Or rather from a young man called Ben Bullock, an ex-miner from Burnley, who conceived the idea whilst holidaying in Blackpool. He began producing sticks of brightly coloured, lettered candy sticks at his Yorkshire-based sweet factory in 1887. He sent his first batch of lettered rock to retailers in Blackpool where it was a success.

An ex-employee of Bullocks Toffee Works, George Seniors was probably the first person to make Blackpool rock in the town in 1902.

Rock was being sold from stalls on the beach. Some stalls were regulated by Blackpool Corporation whilst others, below low tide mark, were outside their jurisdiction. Although illegal, hawkers sold rock from baskets in the streets whilst their accomplices warned of the approach of the police.

World War II had a huge impact on the confectionery trade. A sharp rise in the price of sugar, rationing, and a rise in the cost of the greaseproof paper created problems and by 1946 production was at about a third of its pre-war level. Some unscrupulous street traders duped customers with pieces of old walking stick in cardboard tubes whilst the Ministry of Food was ever-vigilant over any illegal supply of sugar into the factories or the selling of the end product without collecting the required coupons. Queues would form from 5.30am outside rock shops, so keen were visitors to use the family’s coupons and take home their traditional Blackpool souvenir.

Rationing of sweets continued until 1953 and then the sales rose spectacularly with up to fifty factories in the town making traditional rock. The 1960s and 70s saw new problems with first Purchase Tax and then V.A.T. Then followed a world shortage of sugar and, going into the 1980s some more food production legislation. I’ll cover the present day in a minute as I want to mention the following.

I was surprised to learn that machines are still unable to master the skills of making rock, even in the 21st century. Craftsmen of seaside rock are called Sugar Boilers and, as the name suggests, they start the process by boiling sugar and glucose in a copper pan heated to 300 degrees centigrade. 

It is poured out onto a cooling table, then pulled and separated into smaller sections. While the flavourings are being added, the remaining outer layer and lettering sections are coloured. Getting the lettering correct is a skill that can take up to 10 years to learn.

The letters are made individually before they are lined up and stuck side by side, with white filler in between. Square-shaped letters (B, E, F, K) and triangle-shaped letters (A, V) are made first, while round-shaped letters (C, D, O, Q) are made last to prevent loss of shape before the rock sets. The lettering, filling and core are rolled together before they are wrapped in the outer casing. The whole slab is then pulled, stretched and rolled into smaller, longer strips by machine and then, by hand, before being cut, wrapped and labelled ready for sale.

So, today orders come from all over the world - for sticks with place names, sports teams, charities, promotional logos and special events. The range of flavours available is equally varied - chicken tikka, pizza and prosecco are sold alongside the more traditional mint, aniseed and fruit varieties. The Coronation Rock Company make a presentation stick of rock for the celebrity chosen each year to switch on the illuminations.

Some of the above information comes from Kathryn Thompson, Showtown and The History of British Seaside Rock Sticks web site.

I haven’t got any stick of rock poems but I have the following that references Blackpool and the rocks involved in fracking .

Wakes

Smoke from excursions
would be shaping these fields
with whispers of summer
as girls in scarves
and boys with severe haircuts
got close
to catch what might be true.

In today’s paper there’s a sketch
of what might pass for a view
lines of track
cutting through acres
of cheap souvenirs of the Tower
drilling deep into memories
of the Pathe News
those kids would have watched
where nodding donkeys
gushed black oil
over guys in overalls.

As the train slows
for Pleasure Beach station
I shake off the past and present
tense for the future
where those donkeys strike
under pressure
not daring to nod
with their hooves planted
in fields of gas
as solid as candy floss
bought by the boys and girls
in their week of summer.

First published in ‘To Have to Follow’ by Julie Maclean & Terry Quinn

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Sugar - A Little Stick of Blackpool Rock

 Somewhere, hidden in the maze of back alleys and side streets of South Shore, there once stood the rock factory. It was only a two minute jog away from our pub, very handy for my first summer holidays job and I was excited to start. Well, I was more excited at the prospect of earning a wage to fund the spends for my school trip to Yugoslavia at the end of August. Dad gave me pocket money for sorting empty bottles at weekends and re-stocking shelves when the pub was shut, but he’d paid for my adventure and anything more was down to me.

On my first morning, I presented my fourteen and a half year old self at a side door to the factory. It was only eight o’clock but already a hive of activity. I was ushered into an office where a fearsome looking man dressed in chef’s whites glanced my way and barked orders. I would work eight until six with an hour off at dinner time. I would brew up when told to for morning and afternoon breaks. I was given a pale blue, long sleeved overall, the same as all the ladies. Some wore headscarves tied like a turban. They were the ones who touched the soft, pliable rock when it was tipped from the sugar boiler. They rolled it, gently stretching it until it was the required thickness, or thinness. This was a skill. They had to work in unison and very quickly before the rock began to harden, otherwise it would crack when cut into lengths. The things we learn in life.

My place was in packing, no headscarf needed. I put labels on jars of ‘pebbles’, wrapped sticky tape round the lids and boxed them up ready to go. I put rock into walking-stick tubes and taped caps on them. I tied ribbons on to blue and pink plastic handles ready to be put into the ‘sugary dummy’ mould. Later, I was shown how to operate a machine that sealed cellophane wrapping round giant humbugs. I knew I’d reached a peak when, at last, I donned a pretty headscarf and went into the finishing room to learn how to wrap sticks of rock. There is a skill to it and I’m not sure if I mastered it. Holding one end still, it sort of twisted itself while my other hand rolled it quickly then twisted the other end, and remember to pop a ‘Blackpool Rock’ slip in as it rolled. It is likely that there's a machine to do it these days. Mainly, I was packing items up ready for despatch.

It was a learning curve about some aspects of the real world. Although I was brought up in pubs, some with ‘salt of the earth’ men’s vault bars, I must have had a sheltered life. I’d never heard so much swearing all at once and really rough talk from women and men alike. A couple of girls who had come to work in Blackpool for the summer talked openly about meeting lads and what they got up to on the beach at night. They weren’t much older than me and were friendly enough but laughed at my naivety.

The highlight of my time there was being pushed around the huge sugar store in a wheel-barrow by a boy I knew from school, also on a summer job, and jumping out quickly without being seen.

The low moments were nearly every day for the first week, probably longer, the sickly, sweet smell of molten sugar with a hint of mint or worse, aniseed, turned my stomach so much I’d be running down the yard hoping to make it to the loo before vomiting. At the very least, I’d have a headache.

I managed the full five weeks as arranged and had new clothes and holiday money for Yugoslavia. It was all worth it.

 

 

A light-hearted blog, a serious poem. I love this.

 

 

The God of Sugar (Sugar Shed, Greenock)

Cavernous – and empty now –
no shouts of dockers,
no barefoot women shovelling
molasses – it has the chill
and hush of a cathedral.

Like a pilgrim arrived at a shrine,
wanting something to touch
for a vision or sign
that a saint or god is there,
I rub the tip of my finger

against the rough bricks
of the wall and lick, tasting
sweet dirt, seeing, shining
in the gloom, an obese boy¬
like Elvis in a sequin suit.

What prayers should I offer
to this god of sugar?
Most fitting and proper,
prayers for the slaves
drowned in leaking holds;

or for those who survived
the voyage to the Caribbean
to cut the cane, lashed
until their backs were striped
with festering wounds.

Or prayers for the child
who spooned golden syrup
from the green lion tin, dribbling it
in spirals to form amber pools
in her porridge; who stole

from her mother’s purse
to buy red-tipped sugar cigarettes;
who ruined her teeth
on lollipops and seaside rock?
Prayers for the woman

who still craves sweetness:
savouring strawberries dipped
in the sugar dish, gobbets
of crystallised ginger, figs
almost rotten with ripeness.

by Vicki Feaver

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

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