FOR decades, people taking a holiday in almost any British resort could bring back a stick of rock made at Parrs in Poole.

The former Parrs site on Alder Road is in the news again after it was revealed that Aldi wants to build a supermarket there.

For many years, the distinctive odour of heated sugar and glucose was a sign of Parrs’ success as the UK’s leading privately-owned manufacturer of gums, jellies and rocks.

The business was founded in 1949 by Jack Lee, his brother, brother-in-law and a friend, all of whom were recently demobbed.

Mr Lee recalled: “We had about £50 each and thought we’d make a few snacks. We knew very little about making foodstuffs. Sugar was still on ration, so we bought fondant made form glucose and were soon swamped with orders.”

The business was originally sited in Parr Street at Ashley Cross.

In the 1960s, it pioneered striped rock and saw its products on sale in most of Britain’s resorts.

It exported to Australia and Canada, as well as sending coloured rock to the US for the Kennedy-Nixon election in 1960 and creating a special moon rock for the Apollo missions. HMS Agincourt ordered 500 sticks with the ship’s name in the centre.

Rock is thought to have been first made in 1894 by a Morecambe man, nicknamed Dynamite Dick because of the sweet’s resemblance to the sticks of explosive used by Alaskan gold miners.

To get names running through the sticks, the makers had to form letters in red rock and fill the spaces with white rock. This created the “letter ring”, with white rock added in the centre and outside it.

An Echo feature in 1972 said a typical stick should contain around 3,000 licks but only 2,500 crunches.

“The correct way to eat rock is to carefully slice it into even-sized pieces and gently suck,” said the report.

“This way one gets the fullest flavour and it lasts longest.”

Back then, Parrs was able to get away with the slogan: “Suck some rock instead of your thumb – dental decay is better than mental decay.”

In 1981 – the same year Parrs made a commemorative rock for the Royal wedding of Charles and Diana – it was in trouble for some of its raunchier lines.

County councillor Edna Adams, with the backing of the pressure group East Dorset Family Concern, had taken offence at lollipops bearing cheeky slogans.

She intended to a have the matter discussed at the county’s public protection committee, with colleague Cllr Avril Norton declaring: “We are feeding youngsters with suggestive ideas.”

But Leon Lee, director of Parrs Quality Confectionery, said of the slogans: “They are the same sort of thing as saucy postcards which have been selling in shops for donkeys’ years.”

In 1984, the Echo reported that Parrs’ rock was old all along the south coast, as well as the east coast resorts and the other countries of the UK.

Among the corporate customers with their name in rock were British Telecom, TV AM, Clarks shoes, DER, Central TV and Sterling Health.

As well as rock and jelly babies, the factory was turning out aniseed balls, mint imperials and a host of other sweets.

In 1986, rock sales were said to have reached an all-time record, with Parrs hiring 40 extra staff.

Not everyone loved the factory, though. In 1989, some residents behind the factory were claiming compensation after a “deluge of sugar and starch flooded their gardens”.

And in 1995, neighbours were complaining about the sugary smell from the factory. The company retorted that it had been there 30 years, making the same products the same way.

In 1991, with the country in recession, Parrs was spending £1million on expansion.

Chairman Jack Lee said: “I think people like to eat, drink and smoke if they are depressed. If people have less money to spend, they don’t want to buy expensive boxes of chocolate. We produce the type of confectionery that’s in vogue.”

Annual turnover in 1995 was said to be “well in excess” of £10m and Parrs was producing 200 tonnes of sweets a week, with jellies and gums making up 80 per cent of sales.

In 2001, the company was bought by Danish-owned Toms Confectionery ltd, which was itself bought by the Blackpool-based Tangerine.

But in 2004, director Nigel Lee returned to buy back part of the business, and Parrs Rock & Novelty Company set up at Roundways Industrial Estate in Wallisdown.

But Parrs at Wallisdown closed in 2007, and Tangerine Confectionary closed the Alder Road site in 2013, moving production to Yorkshire and Lancashire – and bringing an end to a Dorset institution.