Hello Walkers crisps, It’s me again Cecil Thax (86)!

I have no idea how to begin writing this letter, I am literally convulsing with rage! I am so furiously angry not only for reasons I will outline soon but also for the fact that this is third time I am writing to you about this subject!

 Why am I writing to you once again? Well, once again you’re going to have to use your thought pocket (brain) to picture the scene in your mind eye!

 The morning: A Tuesday

The weather: Hot and wet

The toupee: My best shopping toupee

The shopping list: Forgotten and left on the kitchen counter.

 I had walked to the shop all on my own as my wife (Margaret 77) was having a hot flush (she was winning at her weekly poker morning and didn’t want to leave) so I got to do the shopping all by myself. If my wife comes shopping she will keep a tight hold of the purse strings (she should just keep her purse in her handbag). She also won’t let me look at the list or chose any shopping I want. I have one function and that is to pick the heavy items from the shelves. That and pack the shopping, so I have two functions really. Well and I have to carry the bags home too, so three and do all the unpacking too. Despite my four functions what I am not allowed to do is chose what foods we buy. So imagine my delight when I had free reign to purchase anything I wanted. 

 I got the trolley and bought my weekly essentials bran flakes, biros, bingo wipes, magnets, deodorising spray, smamptons, odourising spray and movie night snacks. It has been many years since I’ve been allowed to shop on my own. Mostly for my propensity for buying magnets (they just mystify me, how do they work!?). So this time Cecil was allowed to buy the movie night snacks! Every week for 3 years we have watched a film on Saturday night and every week my wife has chosen the snack. It is always raisins! At a push it will be seedless currants! But not this week! This week Cecil gets to choose! Almost instinctively I made my way to the crisp isle.

 In the long long ago, during the before time, I would buy myself a bag of crisps a day and eat them with the glee of a Golumn clutching his precious. This was something that gave me great joy. I have eaten every crisp known to man (assuming that man shops in UK supermarkets). Walkers crisps, Smiths crisps, KP Crisps, Quentin Crisps, space raiders, quavers and monster munch, the list is nearly endless. Though I can’t and won’t ever try these ‘vegetable crisps’. Who in their right mind wants to eat a salty crispy slice of beetroot?! I’m sorry I’ve lost my train of thought! It had fallen off the tracks of imagination and crashed into the sidings of longing and remembrance.

 Essentially I knew what crisps I wanted and those crisps were Walkers salt and cracked black pepper sensations (or other brand salt and pepper crisp analogue). But I knew Walkers has not made salt and cracked black pepper sensations for very many years. They’d gone the way of Pacers, Spiras, cheese snaps, country crock, the USSR, hot dry summers and my wife libido. I.E. they simply no longer exist. I have finally come to terms with this, I’d seen that most of the sensations line is no longer in production, all I ever see are the Thai sweet chilli and the chicken ones. I always hoped that one day you would bring back Walkers salt and cracked black pepper sensations but clearly is it never ever meant to be.

 For as I was walking down the crisp isle, I spied something which at first filled my heart with joy. There was a ‘new’ line of sensations crisps. Could it be? Could they be back? Was I about to be reunited with a once dear and delicious friend? A once lost companion brought back from the dead to be returned to my elderly bosom?

 Was I chuffers like! The new flavours are Japanese sweet wasabi and ginger and chargrilled steak and Chimichurri! I was agog, aghast and a forlorn when I saw these new baffling flavours! Why would you do this!? Who would prefer wasabi and ginger on their crisps to salt and pepper?! Where are you doing your market research? I’ve asked upwards of 1 people if they’d like to try wasabi and ginger crisps; both of them admittedly said yes, but only on the proviso that they were free. Don’t even get me started on chargrilled steak and chimchimcharoo. I can’t even pronounce it! When I tried to my false teeth nearly fell out!

 There are other salt and pepper crisps on the market, so they are obviously a popular flavour combo. But none of them stand up to the deliciousness of the Walkers salt and cracked black pepper sensations. No other crisp has the delicate light crisp, they all have a chunkier thicker crisp and usually an oily overtone.

 So as I stood in the isle looking over at these new horrors, I began to get angry. Why did my beloved crisps have to go away? There was a time when my wife left me that they were all I had to look forward to. I began to weep. Forgotten memories came flooding back to me. The divorce, the house sale, having to look after my son, being the only one in the house who would answer the land line and/or the front door. I knew that however bad things got, I could console myself with a bag of Walkers salt and cracked black pepper sensations. Then they were taken away from me forever.  A staff member came to ask I everything was ok; I had been stood in the crisp section for fifteen minutes.

 I have purchased both the steak and the wasabi crisps. I shall be trying them tonight. I suspect I will not like them, but I shall keep an open mind. I hope they’re not as revolting as the cheese, cucumber and salad cream crisps you put out last year, they were so disgusting that they made my son leave home! So I shall stop writing this communication now and report back to you post taste.

 (The taste test shall be done on movie night which this week is the film ‘Hostel’. I used to go youth hostelling in my youth so I am very excited to watch a film about youth hostelling)

 Well we have tried the Wasabi crists and the overall consensus is ‘meh’. They are nothing special. The physical crisp was light and crispy but not too thick or oily, just right but it was the flavouring. It was a bit bland. Like a weak, watered down mustard. And like a scene in a Harry Potter that does not feature Ron Weasley, the ‘ginger’ was nowhere to be seen. They were a 7 on a scale of 1 to deliciousness (deliciousness being at 100 and not 10 as you might have thought).

 I will have to wait until the next movie night to try the steak ones. As a side note, Hostel is not about youth hostelling at all, it’s horrific!

 It is now several days later and I have had time and opportunity to try your steak and chim-chimeny crisps. My verdict, and the verdict of my wife, son and family friend Jeremy (who had come round to let us borrow his Kong: Skull Island blue ray disk) is that they are the most revolting sensations we have ever had the misfortune of tasting. We couldn’t even finish the bag of crisps! They were that unpleasant! We tried to like them but if I’d been served a steak that tasted like that in a restaurant, I would send it right back and then leave the establishment! Which I am sorry to say is what I am going to have to do to the sensations line of crisps. I.e. I am going to leave them and never come back unless the salt and cracked black pepper ones are reinstated.

 I realise this is a harsh thing to say and do; but I feel very strongly about this matter! Obviously if my actions start putting people out of work then I shall reassess my feeling for the Thai chilli ones. So I shall watch the broadsheets for news of your company.

 I hope my once again harsh words on this matter will make the big walker wigs see sense and reinstate the salt and cracked black pepper crisps I so long to once again sample!