My mum almost started foaming at the mouth when she saw a stack of these in a Marks and Spencer branch in Orchard Road today. When I said I wanted to buy a pack and try them, she shoved some mint humbugs into my hands as well, whilst pushing me towards the cashier. "Well, go on then, pay up and let me have one of those red and yellow ones" Mint humbugs I've had countless times but rhubarb and custard boiled sweets, not so much, in fact, not ever. I do know they're a terribly British flavour combination but have never tasted rhubard either. Mum swears she used to have sweets just like them when she was growing up, here in Singapore, in the 1940s. She lived with rich relatives who were card carrying Anglophiles and had this, that and everything else in the house imported from England, including cans of  very similar stripey red and yellow sweets, beloved of my mother. I offered her one and she greedily (I kid you not) popped it into her mouth. Her eyes closed with pleasure as her shoulders quivered, before she let out a deep sigh. She actually smiled. Well, I just had to try one now! They aren't as sickly-sweet as many other boiled sweets I've had. The yellow half tasted faintly of vanilla custard and the red half was sweet and sour with an intriguing aftertaste I can't quite put my finger on. They have a really satisfying, mouth filling bulk as they're rather large and take quite a while to dissolve. Would I buy them again? Yes. The both of us polished off the lot before our train ride was over, neither of us saying much to each other; yours truly trying to tag that elusive flavour and she, probably lost in some Proustian reverie. And, we're usually the noisiest chatters within earshot, in a train. Oh, the humbugs were good too. Price : SGD 1.50 for an 80 g pack of 9 large sweets, at Marks and Spencer. Available online here.