Back in the days when the sun always shone and Tiswas was king, a young chap could stroll into a shop, hand over a few pennies to the kindly shopkeeper and purchase himself a Texan chew bar. A solid block of nougat covered in chocolate, the infamous Texan could stretch to the floor whilst still attached to your teeth, provided your teeth were able to penetrate the nougat in the first place . As a four year old child being dragged around the Gateway supermarket by his mum, a Texan was a sure-fire way to curb my grizzling.

Then one day, the Texan disappeared. I never found out why, perhaps too many small children were fracturing their jawbones whilst trying to eat one, or maybe Mary Whitehouse campaigned that the Texan was bad for family values and that we should all go back to eating leaves. With the Texan gone, my mum had to find other ways to pacify her whinging son in the supermarket.

So imagine my glee when I discovered that the Texan has made a comeback! Ordered from a quarter of.co.uk (available for a short time only), the postman knocked this morning and woke me from my hangover to duly present me with a package containing ten Texan bars.

All of a sudden I felt like I was four years old again. It was probably the hangover.

On first impressions the Texan is smaller. Yes, I am aware of the mysterious shrinking Wagon Wheel and my hands are a lot bigger, but the proportions of the Texan do seem different. It also seems to be rounder, I can remember the Texan being square so that not only could it ruin your teeth, the corners could remove an eye.

The paper wrapper of old has been replaced by the standard sealed affair, with the overall effect ruined by slapping an advertisement for ringtones over the lettering.

So what does it taste like? Will my taste buds propel my mind back to 1977, back to those sunny days and the Gateway supermarket? Yes, it’s perfect! The taste, the colours, the texture is all just as I remember. It isn’t as chewy, but then I no longer have the jaw of a four-year old. And it does stretch! I managed to tug away at a Texan (ooer) and get a length of approximately 50 cm before it snapped!

According to a quarter of, the Texan will only be with us for a short while, disappearing again in mid-October when production stops. So get some now whilst you still can, wallow in that slightly murky pool of nostalgia then let it pass again, for the original spirit of the Texan lives on.