In the UK, jelly is sold as a dense gel block with cross cuts to enable it to be broken into cubes. Somewhere between a made jelly and fruit gum sweets. These normally melt pretty quickly. My favourite brand, using real fruit juice, has been difficult to find, so I have been hoarding! (I think I'll eat the older ones as sweets!)

The common brand is one my Dad had an objection to. In WWII, he was a concientious objector, and enrolled in the Royal Engineers Pioneer Corps, intending to go into Bomb Disposal. Instead, he was engaged in clearing up bomb sites, reclaiming bricks, and other essential tasks to keep the country running while under attack. One such task was restoring use of the factory of a well-known jam manufacturer. The word came down from the management that the Corps was not to eat with the workers in the canteen because they didn't want conchies there. Dad turned down the opportunity of a job with them in their accunts department after the war, and we never ate any of their products.

I did hear recently about the bombing of that factory, and it has occurred to me that there may have been another reason for this ban. There were workers killed during the bombing, rather nastily, and if I had been in charge, I would not have wanted the survivors to hear about the details of what happened from the clear-up crew. I'm pretty sure that by the time Dad was there, that area had been cleaned, because there was a Boys Brigade song he used to sing which he would not have been able to sing had he seen what was there. It would have been much easier to say the company was banning conchies, than that it was banning people who might reveal how colleagues had died.

Still, I don't eat their stuff.

Penny