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Whistling Pops

"There's nothing quite so jolly, as a lolly you can BLOW!"

Who recalls these? They were, quite literally, small hardboiled lollipops on sticks that also functioned as whistles, so you could blow them to make a 'peeeep' sound as you sucked them. An ingenious idea that was launched around '79, though sadly short-lived; they had disappeared from the market by the mid-1980s. How they worked depended upon how succesfully they'd come out of the factory moulds- some disappointingly didn't work at all, others produced a magnificent tone in E flat that would've done credit to a professional standard recorder. Of course, their ability to function wore down as the lolly was slowly dissolved!

I was already about 10 when these things were launched, and a bit old to be as entertained by them as I might have been a few years earlier, but I well remember the TV advert. It was of a small circus with variously-dressed adults capering around in the ring, including a uniformed female ringmaster, all singing of the virtues of the sweetmeat whilst a man dressed as a steam train went along the child audience distributing the lollies to them. Classic!


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Do You Remember Whistling Pops?

Do You Remember Whistling Pops?

  • Anonymous user
    on
    Lulu - I'm with you there as regards the chemists. I associate these with being ill as it was medicine, a whistling pop, and a bottle of Lucozade (with the foil top in a glass bottle) every time. Must have been a right PITA for my Mum with me ill in bed making tooting noises .....
  • Anonymous user
    on
    went to school with David and Susan at St Marks in Chadwell Heath !
  • Anonymous user
    on
    Ditto. I was unimpressed by these as a nine year old with a nascent sense of purism. I thought they were gimmicky and that sweets were for eating, not making annoying squealing noises. I'm still a humbug now! Ah, humbugs, now they were a good sweet!
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I remember these from when I was 5 or 6 I only ever remember seeing these in the chemists?! I remember these being on the shelf along with yummy 'health' drinks Ribena, Barley Water and Lucozade (in orange cellophane wrapper) which you only ever had if you were proper poorly!!