An ode to the factory of Messrs. Barratt & Co., wholesale confectioners, Wood Green.

I think I will go to Wood Green

Where the toffee-apples grow,

And in the darkling green wood

See the pear-drops glow.

I will build a house of almond-rock,

And fence it all around

With stout sticks of barley sugar

Planted in the ground.

I will bore for a spring of mineral wafer

Warranted to contain  No " deleterious matter "

To bring a morning pain.

I will have a floor of chocolate bars

And a Turkish delight settee ;

And Barratt shall put me to bed at night,

And Co. shall wait on me.

Thomas Burke, writer and journalist reminds us that in 1921 Wood Green was the home of Barrat and Co. purveyors of confectionary to the Empire

"...when one thinks of the thousands of dingy shop-windows in dingy by-streets of London that are made lovely by the wares of the Barratt family, so that they become very heavens to the starving eyes of little girls and boys, the stupendous vision of beauty that Wood Green has given to the metropolis leaves one breathless. Well I remember the little sweetstuff shop where I could lay out my weekly penny in farthing's-worths of the wares of the Barratts. Sumptuously stocked was its window with coloured delights in neat wooden boxes, the inside of the lids blazing with " Barratt & Co., Wood Green, London," in multi-hued lettering. There one would linger for perhaps half-an-hour, discussing with a friend whether Barratt was at his best in his "all-sorts" at four ounces the penny, or whether his "clove-sticks " at a halfpenny each might not prove the more enduring."