Maynards Bassetts Jelly Babies Carton - 350g

Jelly Babies belong to the bit of British life that runs on small things: the school trip, the long drive to the coast, the bag passed along the back seat. Everyone knows the shape, and nearly everyone has a favourite colour they will defend.

Move to Canada and, sooner or later, a craving turns up for the exact sweets you grew up with. Not a sweet, these sweets. The name on the carton is half the pleasure, and the first one tastes like being nine.

The carton is a sharing size, which is a generous way of putting it. Keep it closed in a cool, dry cupboard and it will wait for you, in theory. In practice it goes into lunchboxes and coat pockets a handful at a time, or gets tipped into a bowl for film night and quietly emptied by one person.

Maynards Bassetts is also the name behind Wine Gums, so if the Jelly Babies are going in the basket, a bag of those tends to follow them in. Nobody has ever regretted it.