Published at 16:33, Monday, 31 December 2012

THE sweets may have left a sour taste in people’s mouths, but handing over a cheque to St Mary’s Hospice helped wipe the grimaces off their faces.

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Staff at Mr Simms Olde Sweet Shoppe in Ulverston raised £500 for the charity with its Black Death competition, seeing who could handle the super-sour sweets.

Entrants paid £1 to take the challenge, which involved holding the sweet in their mouths until the sourness wore off, for a chance to win a £20 voucher for the shop. But despite twisting entrants’ faces into all kinds of pained expressions, the sweets proved so popular the store has now sold out.

Lynn Davies, owner of the Market Street store, said people had been buying them to take into work and play pranks on their colleagues.

She said: “Everybody who took part enjoyed it.”

But she admitted she was not brave enough to try one of the larger sweets herself, saying the little ones were bad enough.

The competition was the idea of staff member James Farrow and Mrs Davies said she had wanted to use the money to help a charity that was important to her family. She said: “I picked the hospice because my husband’s father died there and it is especially important with the flooding they have just had there.”

The hospice had to be evacuated during the heavy downpours last month, forcing staff to find alternative accommodation for patients.

The winner of the competition was 23-year-old Jordan Fletcher, a hairdresser from Barrow.

Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk