'Selling happiness in a jar' - come with me as I check out one of Lancashire's best traditional sweet shops
“Everyone asks me if it’s great to own a sweet shop, and it is. Everyone’s happy when they come in here.”
It’s not every day you get paid to go to a sweet shop. But that’s exactly what happened to me today.
Grandad Jim’s Traditional Sweet Shoppe in Cleveland Street, Chorley, is absolutely packed when I walked in - crammed not only with just about every kind of sweet you can think of, but also customers.
“It’s always busy”, said owner Andy Dickinson, who set up his first shop in Leyland in 2012, named after his grandad. “Apart from the three or four weeks after Christmas and a week after Easter.”
And it’s not hard to see why - this place is the archetypal Aladdin’s Cave of confectionary, all wrapped up in cosy, wood-panelled nostalgia from yesteryear - except it’s not at all - it was all lovingly handmade from scratch by Andy and his dad Tony when it opened 10 years ago.
But you’d never know - with metal toy planes hanging from the ceiling, wooden display cabinets and even a toy train track running above yout head - it really does feel like you’ve travelled back in time to experience what it was like for your grandparents as youngsters.
There’s jars upon jars of boiled sweets, fudges, sherberts and chocolate mice. But then you’re taken by surprise when you turn around and see American-influenced ‘pickles in a pouch’, Sour Patch kids and Mike N Ike’s. And Andy’s wife Kat is a dab-hand at creating ‘lucky bags’, hampers, sweet cones and novelty bags - some even complete with toy spades.
Andy was spurred into changing his life - and his job - upon the birth of his son Harry, 16 years ago. He left his job in customer service at the Plumb Centre, lost weight, learned to play the piano and set up in Leyland, wanting to honour his late grandad who he spent every Saturday with as a child.
Now the Leyland shop is franchised by his dad, and a third shop in Wigan is run by brother Anthony and his fiance Danielle. It’s a real family affair as all of Andy and Kat’s five children from their blended family have worked in the shop - something they say has helped them grow in confidence, people skills, and learn manners.
The name
Andy said: “I wanted the name of the shop to be personal. I also wanted it to be old-fashioned, because I love old-fashioned things and they’re the sweets I remember from being a child. But we also sell a lot of new sweets - we keep up on the trends by listening to what the kids come in asking for.”
He said the best-sellers are Lions midget gems, chocolate nibbles, Haribo rhubarb and custards, and pear drops.
He said: “We get every age group in here. When I started in Leyland, I thought it was a good location near four high schools, but actually, most people are probably between 30 and 50. One of their best-known customers is Chorley MP, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, who they say is partial to Lancashire’s own coltsfoot rock.
Andy added: “Everyone asks me if it’s great to own a sweet shop, and it is. Everyone’s happy when they come in here.”
Kat said: “People come in and you see their eyes open up. The odd saying about being a kid in a sweet shop is true - except now they’re an adult and nobody is limiting them to spending only a pound. We are selling happiness in a jar and people are literally overwhelmed with choice - it’s why they come back - to try out everything.”
But it’s not the only reason they come back - the couple are keen on going the extra mile for their customers. Kat said: “We get a lot of regulars, and when they walk in, Fred (Kat’s son) will be ready getting the tub of their favourites down for them. We know so many of their stories, what’s happening in their lives, and you don’t get that in Asda or B&M.
“For some people, particularly older people, we might be the only people they speak to all day. So it’s old-fashioned customer service as well as old-fashioned sweets. I like to say that we don’t just sell sweets, we sell memories.”
They’re also keen members of Chorley’s flourishing independant trading scene - they claim the Chorley Council are ‘very supportive’, and they proudly source directly from local suppliers wherever possible - including a local family-run wholesaler, Uncle Joe’s Mint Balls in Wigan, they get their Kendal mint cake from Kendal, and Blackpool nougat from Blackpool.
And can you still get a ‘quarter’ of something? “You can ask for it, but we have to serve in grams, so you’ll get 113g”, said Kat. “But a lot of people - including children - do still ask for a quarter”.
Uncle Jim’s is open seven days a week, so pop along and see for yourself. What did I get? Lucky bags and some Irn Bru humbugs I’ve never seen anywhere else.