Drifter

As a child my pocket money each week would be divided between sweets and football magazines. The sweets would fly down my throat and the football magazine would be emptied of posters of Liverpool players that would then be attached to my wall. Any posters of other players would be neatly stored inside an exercise book to be traded at school later in the week. My small collection of coins had quickly become a tatty pile of paper on the floor by Saturday afternoon.

  Birthday money was a whole different affair though. The money was suddenly multiplied and the opportunities for expenditure suddenly seemed endless and I would be far more careful to spend my cash on things that would last a little longer: I think I bought slippers once. One birthday however, I decided that sweets were where life's pleasures were really at and so my request for presents was simply a list of sugary treats, the Drifter heading the list. I got plenty of sweets, but that wasn't enough. The money I'd been given too demanded to be spent on sweets and so over the course of three days I spent and consumed £50's worth of sweets: a quarter of rhubarb and custard, three Rolo eggs, a king-sized Slurpee from 7-Eleven, Fruit Pastilles, a tub of mint-choc-chip ice cream, a Sherbert Fountain, a small but expensive quantity of Pic 'n' Mix from Woolworths, a bar of Cadbury's Whole Nut, a banana Frijj milkshake, a Bounty and yet more Drifters (including some banana flavoured ones). Every sweet that had ever tempted my pocket money from my pocket was suddenly bought up in one frivolous spending spree. My parents marveled as after consuming one load of sweets I walked back down the road to buy yet more. 

  At the cessation of consumption, my wallet was empty and my stomach was full in a slightly dissatisfying gurgling gooey way. I regretted my purchases a little, but whilst most of my birthday money as a child was spent on forgettable things that seemed wonderful at the time, this spendathon is by far the most memorable and for every adult birthday I've had, my mum gift-wraps some Drifter bars so as to raise a commemorative and nostalgic chuckle. My expenditure might of been wasteful, but I'd unwittingly bought a memory.

  I don't much like Drifter bars now. I'm sure they used to be far chewier; now they taste like cardboard rocks. They disappeared for a while in the noughties because they included too many transfats apparently and perhaps their relaunch with reduction of these transfats has contributed to their decline in tastiness. I imagine Nestle had hoped that the Drifter would have been met with a similar excited fervour that the Wispa encountered, but it seems that Drifter does not hold a place in the chocolate hall of fame, just a slightly odd place in my brain.