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I was recently reminiscing with my brother Allan about sweets we used to buy, like MB Bars, Whoppas, Milk Dainties, etc and we brought up the subject of Lucky Tatties or Lucky Potatoes, depending where you were brought up.
Now, for those not old enough to know what a Lucky Tattie was, let me explain that it was a brick hard, flat brown thing, covered with brown cinnamon powder, which you had to bite through and try and chew in order to eventually find, concealed inside the centre of it, a key ring, a glass marble (jorry) or some other ridiculous little toy.
For me, the ‘Lucky’ part was that you didn’t break your teeth while trying to bite it or, swallow the article inside it and choke to death!
Another piece of food we used to eat regularly was my auld Granny’s, home-made clootie dumpling, made in a pillow case.
It was absolutely brilliant, but for some reason, and best known to her generation, when mixing the ingredients to make it, she would add some silver threepenny coins to the mixture. These were coins the size of a 5 pence piece. Now what was that all about?
In one portion alone, I bit into three. Mind you, I swallowed two of them. Everybody would say, ‘Away ye go ya lucky wee bugger!’
‘Lucky?’ My Granny just tried to choke me by putting coins in my slice of dumpling and I’m ‘Lucky’! Don’t think so mate! Imagine if one of them stuck in yer gullet? There’s no way the ‘change’ would do you any good!
And I also had the added embarrassment of having to check my ‘stools’ for the next few days until I passed them and even then, I had to swallow several spoonfuls of liquid paraffin and stand well clear, as they came out fast and hard, they nearly cracked the toilet pan.
To crown it all, when I told my mother what I had just passed, she took them off me.
‘Lucky!’ ‘Lucky my arse!’