Happy Birthday Tate&Lyle

As I was wandering about the supermarket at lunchtime I stumbled upon this little piece of happiness...

I remembered that first, illicit, sticky spoonful of neat syrup in a school baking class, and realised how the green tins have always been in the background of my domestic life. The indispensable syrup was most commonly used by my mum for fruity flapjack, and it was always to be found in my grandmother's larder, next to the homemade blackberry jam and marmite. Then theres sticky puddings, pancakes, bananas, upside-down cake, its uses go on and on. I could wax lyrical for hours.

When I was about twelve, I began a lifelong mini-obsession with two periods of domestic British history; the Victorians, and the 1930s/1940s. All those books I pored over, those sepia photos of typical kitchens, those old-fashioned receipe books, in all those comforting novels, in each was a small, green, ever-present tin, a true staple that has spanned a century and more, That was what really got my imagination, how such a different, unrecognisable world, a hundred years ago, was lived by people just like us.

One day, one faraway sunlit day, after too much flapjack, that tin will be empty. I'll wash it, and fill it with pencils, or needles, or crochet hooks, and it will sit on my desk, because Tate & Lyle Golden Syrup means something to me, even if it's just sentimental nonsense.