Chocolate in PP

The hot weather is a major feature of PP. Susan regularly doles out rations of chocolate, which is carried around in knapsacks. Surely it would be disgustingly soft, if not runny, in that weather.

Yah, and I don't think the non melty stuff was invented yet. But maybe it was stored against something cool. I had a chocolate I had meant to give to my brother in my pocket for two days, and it was fine. Of course, I was inside mostly.

Even in the 1930's, chocolate was wrapped in silver paper which acts as a heat reflector. Providing the chocolate was cool to start with (kept in the elderberry bush store?) and was wrapped up in a cloth or handkerchief to prevent the heat reaching it quickly, it could have lasted several hours before melting.

However when I used to go out with friends, we usually took Rowntrees fruit pastilles or gums. The gums, if you did not chew them, would last longer than even carefully sucked chocolate. 

As a child I do not remember this being a problem, possibly because English summers were rarely that hot.

Not that I had the chance often to take chocolate bars with me, for a at least half my childhood there was rationing, so one was only able to get a limited supply of sweets (candy) and one tended to get the hard boiled kind, or like Owen the Rowntrees gums, they needed to be savored until the next months ration was available.

It all seems incredible today when everything is in abundance.

Caleys of Norwich make "Marching Chocolate" which was originally created as a ration for troops in the great war. The makers claim it contains no vegetable fats and has a high percentage of cocoa solids

http://www.caleys.com/chocolate-bars.html

This would seem to be the nearest we can get to the type of chocolate Susan would have doled out.

In the interest of Science perhaps TARS members would like to conduct a “Dick Callum” type experiment and take some of this chocolate in their knapsacks when walking in the lake district next summer and report back on whether it melts or not.

I would add that, although I live near Norwich, I am not associated in any way with Caleys.

Doesn't matter how hot the weather is, a small boys pocket is always hot enough to melt chocolate...