Fry’s Five Boys

Looking at the fresh faced laddie on the ‘Say Aye tae a Pie’ poster, I was reminded of the Fry’s Five Boys. The other day we were enjoying a pre-dinner drink in the Cloisters Bar and I was drawn into a discussion about Fry’s chocolate – well truthfully I butted in on it. Anyway, I happened to mention the Fry’s Five Boys and none of my new found discussion companions had heard of them. Apparently it was withdrawn in 1976 so that tells you something about the sort of people I but in on these days. So I’ll explain Fry’s Five Boys.

The Fry’s Five Boys were not actually five boys but were the one boy in different states of delirium about Fry's chocolate (his name Lindsay Poulton and apparently he was the son of the photographer).

The Five Boys appeared on the chocolate wrappers, advertisements and metal signs that used to be displayed outside confectioners.

The Five Boys not only appeared on the wrapper of the milk chocolate bar but were impressed on the pieces of a bar.

There was also a bar called Fry’s Five Centres not to be confused with the Five Boys. I say Five Centres but it was a single bar much as todays Fry’s Chocolate Crème, but with five different flavoured fillings: strawberry, orange, raspberry, lemon and pineapple (none of which tasted much like the fruit with the exception of the orange). What made the bar really ‘interesting’ was the internal disposition of the flavoured fondant which was rarely aligned with the segments so you would snap off a segment that was 75% orange and 25% raspberry.

Looking back at the advertising material it struck me that the ‘Realisation’ state is spelt with a ‘z’ – presumably to address the export market. Overall, I fear the Five Boys advertising portrays a seriously creepy image of British childhood in the Fifties - perhaps that's why I talk to strangers in bars about Five Boys!

Say Aye tae a Pie

The first time I tasted a Scotch pie was very nearly the last. I had been through in Glasgow (in Scotland we always ‘go through to’ somewhere if travelling along a line of latitude) and we called in to a café near Queen Street station for what, I was assured by my new flat mate, was a delicious post-pub treat – a proper pie! At first glance it looked quite enticing and somewhat different. The pie was round and had a rim which was just big enough to hold a portion of baked beans on it. “Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face” I mused as I made my first bold incision. Well far from being “a glorious sicht” I was alarmed by what I took to be a greyish ‘ragout’ issuing from the crust. “It’s good; a proper mutton pie” I was hurriedly informed by my companion who obviously detected the apprehension with which I was approaching this delicacy. Now until that moment I had never heard ‘good’ and ‘mutton’ used in the same sentence so, being really hungry and wanting to be culturally sensitive, I pressed on with the culinary experience. But I didn’t try another pie for many a month.

I now have acquired quite a liking for a pie and have sampled some excellent offerings; Tynecastle to mention but one. So imagine my delight when I discovered upon looking in Blacks the Baker window in Dunoon that there is a campaign to encourage the increased consumption of pies in Scotland under the banner “Say Aye tae a Pie!”. 

Now given that this is Dunoon it could be that the campaign was over in the eighties and that their goals have been achieved. I would love to read the Mission Statement ‘Our mission is to get all the people of Scotland eating pies’ or maybe ‘Who will eat all the pies? Aye, us!’ 

My research into which organisation was behind the campaign must continue and I'm expecting to find other iconic Scottish products have been given similar consideration:-
'Say Och Aye the Noo to an Irn Bru';
'Say okey dokey tae an Arbroath Smokie'. 
I wishfully hope that the campaign is masterminded by NHS Scotland and that the follow-on campaign will be ‘Say Aye tae a Pie and Beans – wan o’yer five a day it seems!’