I mentioned it earlier today in a comment elsewhere and it reminded me to give this stuff due praise:
Andrews Liver Salts is the cure for all known ills. Without any doubt, this product has rescued more days for me that any combination of painkillers, antibiotics, stomach settlers or hairs-of-the-dog. If, some day, I am shot, gassed or garrotted, I reckon Andrews will do the trick. They should do a card I can carry in my wallet. Or maybe one of those steroid injection things that you can stab into people’s hearts in medical dramas.
Check out other people’s reviews. The makers (GSK, sadly, nowadays) don’t seem to have a web page for the product, but it has to be enormously revealing that it’s on all of the ex-pat shopping pages, along with Marmite and HP Sauce. If I could be arsed, I’d start a Facebook group right now, and I bet I’d have ten thousand members by the end of the week.
The stuff has particular resonance for me because my grandad Delaney used it, and I was very fond of him. It came in a tin back then — similar to the tins that baking powder and bicarbonate of soda used to come in. It came in a tin until a couple of years ago. (Maybe the green agenda might bring that back?) As a child, of course, I had no idea what it was or what it was for. It was a tin of mystery. Discovering its medicinal magic is a rite of passage for any British lad, I reckon. Maybe that is how it acquired the magical lustre it has for me now.
PS: a further search led me to this fabulous (and outrageously sexist) ad. The male post-war stomach was sorely in need of Andrews rather than ‘pertinent questions’ from women.
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Ian — start the Facebook group. It’ll take 50 seconds, and will be an interesting little experiment.
Oooh — is that a dare?
Brilliant post .… I remember being given that stuff as a kid and had forgotten about it. Chalk me up as your first word of mouth sale as I’m gonna nip to Tesco and se if it still works like I remember it working.
As a child, I used to like to put the salts into a glass of orange (a thing made from tap water and orange squash concentrate). That way I got an effervescent orange drink. It’s the fastest cure for acid indigestion that I know of: it works instantly, the second it gets into your oesophagus.
I live in the U.S. now and brought some back with me from my most recent visit home to Ireland. The container opened in my luggage and some of the fine white powder scattered. Fortunately, I wasn’t stopped by Customs in Chicago or there would have been Questions about the Substance.
It’s also very refreshing as a drink, even when I don’t have indigestion.