Jim Appleby: Past Times

Sylvia Barlow, born within the sound of Bow bells but now living in Bingley, writes to point out that bullseyes were huge, black-and-white striped minty affairs, triangular shaped and - like gobstoppers - hard to get into the mouth. And delectable, particularly in the hungry 1930s when sweets of any sort were a rare treat.

In short, they were giant humbugs, despite what I wrote a couple of weeks ago, and I'm glad to set the record straight.

Humbugs, of course, are no strangers to Bradford. Paris may have had the great chef Escoffier, and London may have boasted the Ritz with its range of culinary artists; but we had Judy Barrett.

Ms Barrett was a stern-looking woman, born in 1777 to a greengrocer, Robert Barrett, and his wife, at their home-cum-shop at 101 Westgate, long gone, opposite the top of what is now Drewton Road.

It was a tough childhood. As soon as she was old enough, she was obliged to earn her own living, and this she did by carrying coal on a donkey cart (and on her own back) from Low Moor into the centre of Bradford. Dressed in men's clothes, she was a familiar sight trudging through Bowling.

Eventually she married a man called Joseph Wilkinson and after her father's death they took on the family business in Westgate.

It was there, about 1810, she started a new enterprise - boiled sweets. She made these at the back of the shop in big open pans on a coal fire and tried all sorts of flavours. The ones that went down best with the customers were the large, striped mint humbugs. They were so good that the name Judy Barrett became the preferred name for humbugs - and you can still buy them by that name in some shops to this day.

Some said they had medicinal qualities, which may have been a bit far-fetched. On the other hand, mint is good for the digestion, and a little of what you fancy does you good, they say...

She was a bit of a pioneer, was our Judith. She also made what must have been the first candy-striped sugar walking sticks, which she would hang across the shop window on a length of string. Westgate must have looked like Blackpool - a resort just coming into its own at the same time.

When the sweets were sold out, Judy had another means of earning a few bob.

From about 1790, water was supplied to Bradford from Brown Royd Hill. It flowed through wooden pipes to a 21-foot by 18-foot storage tank at the top of Westgate.

The seven-foot deep 'reservoir' held about 15,000 gallons of water, exclusively for the shareholders in a business which had had it constructed.

The shareholders in Westgate, Ivegate, Kirkgate, Darley Street and Silbridge Road got piped water for their investment - though for only an hour a day, and sometimes less, and for only two or three days each week. Even so, piped water was an absolute luxury at the time.

At the end of the day, surplus water would be sold to the public.

This was Judy's chance of a few bob. Positioning herself at the outlet tap from the tank, with the permission of the shareholders, she sold off the water to the public by the bowlful and the bucketful - a nice littler earner which ended in 1855 when Bradford Corporation took over the job of supplying water to its citizens.

Judy Barrett died on March 27, 1860, and the Bradford Observer wrote: 'On Tuesday last, aged 83, Judith, widow of Mr Joseph Wilkinson, greengrocer, of Westgate, better known as Judy Barrett. The deceased, in the whole course of her life, never slept a night out of Bradford and for the last half century has been famous as a vendor of that class of sweetmeats known as "Humbugs".'

Luscious lollies that took some licking!

While we're on the subject of sweets and other goodies, Neville Carrodus writes from exile in Birmingham to ask if anybody remembers the frozen Barrs?

No, that's not a misprint, and yes, Neville, anybody of a certain age (say over 40 and under 60) remembers the frozen Barrs.

For years and years, soft drinks had come in bottles and, despite the growing popularity of ice lollies, only an idiot would freeze a bottle full of liquid.

There were two reasons for this:

1. It would burst; and

2. Even if it didn't burst, you wouldn't be able to get it out of the bottle.

Then some enterprising - nay visionary - manufacturer decided it would be cheaper and easier to put drinks in wax cartons, the sort which it is, to this day, almost impossible to open without getting milk up your sleeve.

A generation of schoolkids came to realise, aided by a clip on the ear, that orange-coloured stuff didn't wash out of shirt-sleeves. And a generation of shopkeepers came to realise, almost simultaneously, that wax cartons full of orange stuff bunged in the same freezer as the ice creams would themselves freeze; and, when frozen, would be in great demand among schoolkids who loved the taste of frozen orange goo and also loved the fact that it left their tongue stained the same lurid shade for several hours.

The manufacturer nearest to our school was Barrs, and the shopkeeper was the formidable Elsie, and soon the playground became a symphony of slurps and the afternoon a landscape of tongues stained the colour of a sunset over Armageddon.

The frozen Barrs could last for hours. What didn't last for hours was the flavour. For some complex scientific reason, once explained by a chemistry master, the syrup melted at a lower temperature than the water ice and was therefore sucked out first.

So you spent part of the afternoon walking slurping on a baby iceberg in a waxed carton. It was an early lesson in the politics and economics of food.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.