When I was child living in Tufnell Park in the late 1940s a regular feature of my Primary School week was the arrival of the Virol Lady. She would turn up every Monday morning and dole out to anyone with a penny in their pocket a spoonful of Virol, a brown, sweet and incredibly sticky Malt Extract. She came equipped for the job with a jumbo sized jar of the miracle cure along with a massive key ring strung with hundreds of battered spoons. You paid your money, then Virol Lady took the next clean spoon on her giant ring, scooped out a dollop of the brown goo from the jar and gave it to you. I cannot remember if the woman took the spoon off the ring or whether you had to slurp up the Virol with the jangling keyring swinging in front of your nose. I can remember that the next customer always got the next clean spoon.
My first introduction to philosophy came as I wondered if the Virol Lady actually washed all the spoons once they had been used or did she simply recycle them in their ‘sucked and sticky’ state. Did we know? Did we care? Discuss.
Although we were all probably healthier in the late 1940s and early 1950s than we are now, what with wartime rationing on virtually everything we ate and loads of exercise, (few families had cars in those days), there was the lingering fear that we were undernourished. The new formed Welfare State kept us topped up with free orange juice, cod liver oil and dried milk but for over anxious parents there were additional supplements they could buy like Roboleine, Radio Malt, Haliborange, Metatone Liquid Tonic and probably the most popular as far as children were concerned - Virol. Tasty!
Virol was a by-product of the brewing industry, packed full of nutrients, including vitamins A, B and D, riboflavin, malt, sugar, egg, orange juice and refined fats. Small wonder that in ‘The House at Pooh Corner’, Kanga gives baby Roo malt extract as a “strengthening medicine”.
Virol. Anaemic Girls Need It!
Virol. Growing Boys Need It!
Virol. The Delicate Child Needs it!
Virol certainly went down a treat in my neck of the playground. It was sweet and very tasty but did we need it? My memory of those times is unclear. We were skinny but we seemed healthy enough. Allergies, complicated dietary requirements and general ‘special needs’ were largely unrecognised. Some children were just deemed to be ‘fussy’, ‘difficult’ or ‘unruly’. There were plenty of things lurking out there to kill us including polio, the London smogs and TB but without fast foods, sugary drinks, pizzas and snacks we somehow survived.
Come, Hygiene, goddess of the growing boy, I here salute thee in Sanatogen! Anaemic girls need Virol, but for me Be Scott’s Emulsion, rusks, and Mellin’s Food, Cod-liver oil and malt, and for my neck Wright’s Coal Tar Soap, Euthymol for my teeth.
JOHN BETJEMAN - Cornwall in childhood
A SPOONFUL OF VIROL
- 1899 Virol was produced experimentally by Bovril, in their Old Street factory in London.
- 1900 The company was registered on 20 January, to take over the business of manufacturing and selling the food known as Virol.
- 1900s Demand grew and Bovril set up Virol as a separate company.
- 1920 The production of Virol moved to Perivale, Middlesex, where the premises were larger and more modern.
- 1929 Listed Exhibitor - British Industries Fair. Manufacturers of Virol, *Virol*ax, Virol and Milk. (Stand Nos. K.21 and K.32)
- Pre-WWII. Virol became associated with Ambrosia to produce Virol and Milk in direct rivalry with Horlicks.
- WWII. Sometime during the wartime period, production ceased as it proved too costly to manufacture.
- Post-WWII. Virol changed hands several times.
- 1971 Bovril, (and therefore Virol) was taken over by Cavenham Foods.
- 1977 Virol was sold to Janks Brothers of High Wycombe.
- 1979 Optrex bought Virol
Although Virol seems to have disappeared - along with the yo-yo, Dick Barton and the Beatles - you can still buy Malt Extract from Holland and Barretts made to the same recipe. According to Virol fans it is still as yummy as ever!
– from Martyn Day
Comments
Virol was great, my mother "doled it out" as a treat when my sister and I were "convalescing" from Whooping Cough or Mumps (no MMR in those days). Don't remember being given at school though. But Martyn is right that no-one seemed to have allergies. Except I do recall one - just one. At the Christmas school party, about 1960, the teacher suddenly remembered we had a boy with Diabetes in the class and announced to the entire room (50 children + helping adults) that he couldn't have the usual cake, jelly & ice-cream etc. His solution for this mortified 9 year old? "Find him some fruit!" Maybe we were healthier then (no multi-billion food & drink industry advertising on colour telly) but teachers are now certainly better informed and more sensitive.
Ian on 2016-11-13 06:45:34 +0000I remember Virol especially as my parents had a pharmacy. We didn't get it at school although we did get 1/3 pint of milk, which was never in the fridge so it was warm in the summer (eugh!) and frozen in winter (more eugh!). Interesting history above because Beecham (who produced Horlicks) purchased Bovril, Marmite & Ambrosia from Cavenham Foods. The company was sold on again to CPC in 1990. My parents used to give us Minadex if we were recovering from colds, cough, tonsilitis etc. and Lucozade with that beautifully orange cellophaned wrapped bottle. Rosehip syrup was also popular in the 60s - another very sweet syrup which was good for us and we believed them - a spoonful of sugar and all that!
Dawn S on 2016-11-14 14:32:05 +0000I must have gone to the same primary school as Martyn Day in Tufnell Park, I agree we were given a spoonful of Virol every week by a woman, thought she was the nurse. We used to queue up in the corridor by class, and it cost a penny. I loved it. You were right, we all seemed healthier then. We were also given syrup of figs to keep us regular (normally after bath time on a Friday). Also Liquid Frutta, for coughs, tasted awful.
Christine Taylor / now May on 2017-03-06 21:00:47 +0000My mother told me that she put Virol on my dummy and was convinced that the sticky sweet stuff was responsible for my baby teeth dropping out or needing to be extracted!! BewareðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜
Lynn Ross on 2017-04-22 21:18:27 +0000Yes, I remember those times well. My favourites in my childhood were Virol by the spoonful, wonderful. Also Nestle's Milk (which was a sweet sticky fluid which came in a white tin) spread on a slice of bread. Delicious! I also remember as a child exploring an empty house which my father had bought and finding a large unlabelled tin (probably about 2kg size) of a brown powder, which we tasted. My sister didn't like it, but I could not get enough of it. It turned out to be instant coffee, which I had never seen before, and must explain why these days I am addicted to espresso.....
John Holden on 2017-06-06 15:00:11 +0000I am confused. Some say Virol was a meat product others say malt extract. Who is correct? Loved Virol. I buy malt extract but has not the same depth of flavor.
Wendy on 2017-08-30 17:50:56 +0000My late husband, born June 1936, had his photograph used in a Virol advertisement when he was a baby, as it was Virol that saved him from a sickly baby to a bouncing baby! I wonder if that advert still exists!
Mary Wilkinson on 2017-09-09 15:54:39 +0000Loved it . Try it in the bake off
barry kay on 2017-09-19 19:49:56 +0000I remember my mother dishing out Virol to myself and mt brother. Although I love both Bovril and Marmite we both hated Virol and so did some of our friends. We used to call it "Vile".
Jim Peek on 2017-10-14 09:32:57 +0000Had it as a child In the 60s. Used to love it.
Tracey on 2017-10-16 22:33:39 +0000I lived in Tufnell Park too from '57 to '67. Adored virol, couldn't get enough of it. Also rosehip syrup and haliborange vitamin pills. I can hear the squeak of the wrapper on the bottle of lucozade. If I had a temperature mum would carefully open the paper wrapper containing a Beecham's powder and dissolve it in water. You drank it down as fast as possible then got the lucozade to take away the taste. Survived measles, German measles, mumps, chicken pox, pneumonia - we were made of stern stuff then, and I reckon virol had a lot to do with it.
Chareline on 2017-10-27 15:23:30 +0000I was born in 1951 and although i dont remember being given Virol my mum told me she used to dip my dummy in it. Although she took me to the dentist regularly it did not prevent my second teeth coming through decayed, I also recall having to have several baby teeth extracted. Im convinced the Virol accounted for this happening, through very assiduous care and good dentistry I have most of my natural teeth still, though many are filled, capped, crowned etc. Thank goodness for advances in dentistry but had I not been given Virol this way I feel my oral health wouldnt have suffered in the way it has.
Judith B on 2017-11-20 10:02:31 +0000My mum used to give this to me and my brother I remember it well I used to love it, sometimes when mum wasn’t looking I would sneak another spoon full, l now have a jar of malt extract but it doesn’t seem to be the same I remember it being a little thicker and lighter in colour
Mary Smalley on 2017-12-14 17:58:27 +0000We, too, disliked Virol and called it Vile, although we didn't get it at school. Loved NH orange juice concentrate. The place we got it also housed the school dentist, which still used gas as an anesthetic. National Milk tins we kept jigsaws in. Loved the school milk. We could get extra ones in break time, as there was always a surplus. The only time I liked Lucozade was when I was ill and it was often the only thing I felt like. Survived chicken pox and measles, epidemics of which followed each other within a month, and mumps later, good to get over at an early age. We had stool samples collected from home during them. Lots of good plain food, including school dinners. All those milk puddings - Rice, semolina, sago and tapioca. We grew up to be taller than our parents. In my 6th form almost all the boys were six footers.
Peter Ellis on 2017-12-21 09:06:12 +0000I was very thin after measles as a child though looking at me now it’s hard to believe. Was put on this by my mother and loathed it to the point I hid the jar inside a large vase. Was promised it would be my last jar if I told her where it was, I did and it was. Hated taste,smell and sound as the spoon came out with the brown goo Along with parishes food, fennings and Virol we had a good time and kids moan now
Carol Shorten on 2018-01-09 19:53:11 +0000I found this while trying to source Virol. It seems that this is no longer obtainable. The various malt extracts from H&B are nowhere near as good. This is a product we were given in the ‘50s and I miss, along with... Haliborange little round tablets Woodward’s Gripe Water - better than gin Rosehip syrup
David Nimmo on 2018-02-12 19:31:55 +0000Can anyone remember Ovaltine Rusks Why did they stop producing them when they still make Ivaltine drink?
Lucy on 2018-06-18 20:57:53 +0000Yes, I remember 'Virol' in the early 1950's. Then it came in a swollen-topped glass jar with a tin lid which also had a tin circlip around it, I think, like those on paste jars of the same period. I remember that I liked it in those days. Several years ago I found an original 'pot/china' jar of the same shape in an antiques' shop. I still have it in my study ! I now see that H & B stock the modern equivalent; it will be interesting to taste some as, of course, our taste changes over time. I remember how I disliked peanut butter as a child but love it now !
Miles Rhodes on 2018-07-18 15:36:49 +0000Yes, I remember Virol in the early 1950's. Then it came in the original shaped but glass jar with a tin lid and circlip as on those paste jars of the period. I liked it and I , too, remember that mother gave it me by the spoonful every day ! Years ago, I found an original product china jar in an antiques' shop and still have it in my study ! I see that H&B have the modern equivalent and it will be interesting to see whether I still like the taste.
Miles Rhodes on 2018-07-18 15:49:42 +0000I remember being given Virol as a child living in London during the 1960s, but definitely not at school. I absolutely loved the stuff and remember being given spoonfuls of it. Mum sometimes put Virol in hot milk to drink and she also used it as a sandwich spread.
Ruth Archer on 2018-08-23 16:21:09 +0000Hi I have found 2 bottles one large, one smallish of virol and wondering if there was a site to contact to sell or donate these to
Emma Gunning on 2018-09-04 16:52:50 +0000Sitting with my friend discussing memories of Virol. We were born 1943 and 1947. Both of us it turns out were brought up on daily Virol and we loved it. We had the /3 pt milk at school daily, National Health Orange and Cod Liver Oil which I can still drink from the bottle. We are now going to try some Malt Extract products, starting with a visit to Holland & Barrett. Thanks for the memories
Merv Whitney on 2018-09-20 16:34:34 +0000Both I and my sister had Virol in the mid 1930's. We obtained it from a local centre in the High Road, Ilford. It was supplied in waxed cartons and we took it both from the spoon and also spread on bread and butter-delicious! From the same centre we also had Emulsion and taken on the spoon -again very nice. I was a fairly sickly child and am coming up to 90! my sister is a year older. I still have a few teeth and so does my sister - and she still manages on her own. Maybe we both have a lot to thank Virol and Emulsion for and my Mother for keeping us well. A last comment is that Virol was not seen at school.
Richard Johnson on 2018-10-18 14:43:44 +0000I have an old stoneware pot about 6" high marked with the Virol trade mark and ' A preparation of BONE-MARROW an ideal fat food for children & invalids'. I wonder how this became malt?!
Judy Aplin on 2018-11-20 14:11:21 +0000I was supplemented with Virol in the 1940s. Many decades later my mother told me it "saved me from being a wimp." ! (Not her exact words, but you get the message.) It would be interesting to know what its ingredients were then.
Rodney on 2018-12-01 20:55:40 +0000I remember being given virol in the 1960s. We absolutely hated it. Delrosa rosehip syrup and haliborange we liked. It's funny to remember that Lucozade was only for when you were I'll and could only be bought in the chemist.
Hugh Boyd on 2019-01-04 00:12:27 +0000
For Mary Wilkinson think this is your husband's photo for the virol.
Noelle Whiley on 2019-01-12 12:06:19 +0000I loved Virol! Given a spoon full most days at home in 50's. Also took minadex which I loved the taste of as well. Never really thought about what was in either supplement. Was talking to a friend about it the other day then someone posted an old newspaper & there was an advert for Virol. Not with a young lad in though :-) I have luckily been healthy all my life & have all but a couple of my own teeth with only about 4 fillings so it didn't do my teeth any harm but it's probably different if on a dummy, which my Mum didn't use.
Susan on 2019-01-20 21:25:31 +0000I loved virol it was a toffee type of compound in a jar. It was sticky and brown and slid down nicely and was a substance we got given in the winter. It helped protect us through the winter along with vests Liberty bodice and thick knickers .
Genese on 2019-01-23 22:14:24 +0000I was interested to read that Bovril were the originators of Virol. However, in the 1960s I lived with my parents in an old house in Aston Clinton , Buckinghamshire. Local legend had it that a doctor "who invented Virol" had lived there at some time. Digging in the garden one day we unearthed a very old Virol jar, which I still have, although that could have been just a co-incidence!
Rosemary Nimmo on 2019-04-09 12:16:45 +0000I loved Virol as a child (born 1949) and also RoseHip syrup and Welfare orange juice. As a young country mum I collected old bottles of many sorts, and have 3 Virol ceramic pots of three sizes. The biggest is "an Institution pot", which stands 10 inches tall. (It now serves as the most elegant lavatory brush holder I have ever seen). I think this would have been too big for a school nurse to cart around, so I believe the "institution" designation. Anybody interested to see a picture, or museum to acquire?
Shirley on 2019-06-16 18:59:11 +0000I loved Virol, I still remember standing in the cloakroom at school waiting for my turn to have a spoonful and we had it at home - yummy!!
Anne Konskier on 2019-07-13 09:43:54 +0000As a schoolchild in the early 1970s I remember visiting the Ambrosia factory at Lifton, Devon. On leaving the factory after the tour, each of us was given either a tin of Ambrosia rice pudding or a jar of Virol which, I understand, was still being made at the plant at that time.
John Lewis on 2019-11-01 16:41:02 +0000Living on a farm when I was a child ,I was Quite Healthy until I started School, then everything went down hill,seeming to catch everything from chicken pox to Glandular fever.I can well remember my mum spooning out the virol from what seemed an enormous Jar ,twisting it round the spoon so as not to waste a drop. also remember minadex, and that special stuff Lucozade in the cellophane wrapper .Must Have been good stuff were still here.
Peter MacBean on 2019-12-04 17:58:38 +0000So glad that so many others remember Virol....I thought it was only me! I was born in 1931 so my memories are pre-war. I do not remember having anything extra during the War. My sister was born in 1940 and was the fattest of us all as she had extra milk, orange juice, Farley's Rusks ( we lived near the factory in Plymouth ) cod liver oil etc. whilst we had to survive on smaller rations and extra school milk. One bright spark I do remember is that after the severe bombing in Plymouth the government ordered huge amounts of sweets to be sent to our area. In particular the sweetshop had big trays of toffee and weird chocolate which they had to break up with a hammer! One of the toffees was bright green Lime toffee and to this day I am addicted to green sweets ! As others have said, we have survived it all, measles, chicken-pox, german measles and whooping cough plus polio, TB,diptheria, scarlet fever and a few bombs not to mention meals at the British Restaurant !!!!!! Very Best Wishes to all......long live Virol !!
Marion Forster Parish on 2020-01-15 12:43:43 +0000Thank you for resolving a great mystery to me. I have found an early gift box circa 1925-1935 of cutlery with "Presented with the compliments of VIROL LTD." Nothing in Wikipedia, practically nothing anywhere, and here in New York it was never used. Sounds a lot like a sweet version of marmite. I see this is a nutritional extra given to British children quite commonly up to the 1960s, and I guess t he cutlery set was to promote the brand. Cheers!
Benjamin List on 2020-02-15 20:48:33 +0000Ha ha happy memories. When I was about five in 1958 my grandfather worked as copywriter for the ad agency that marketed Virol - J Walter Thompson, I think - so going to visit him and my grandmother in Littlehampton always meant large dollops of Virol from one of the several jars in their kitchen and a jar for my parents to take home. Sweet and sticky and delicious. Also remember Delrosa roseship syrup, Farleys rusks, thick National Health orange juice in those rectangular bottles, Minadex, and of course dear thrilling Lucozade bought from a chemist with clear orange anti-sun blinds in the window. No one at school had allergies. Only one was fat. We all got measles, chicken-pox, mumps, etc, and had two weeks off school each time. Dreaded the little bottle of warm milk at first break but loved school dinners, especially the puddings with custard. Hospitals still used gas then, too. I had my tonsils out at seven and was given too much gas so had to staty in for a month - in the Ear Nose and Throat Hospital on Golden Square in Soho even though we lived in Surrey - and spent my time looking out of the window across to a showroom of a fashion company and trying to avoid the sound of the nun in the next ward retch-coughing horribly. Happy days. (Well, hope the nun survived.)
Patti P on 2020-05-28 14:37:42 +0000Loved Virol as a post war child! Someone mentioned liquid emulsion - what was this for? I remember a neighbours' children being force-fed this thick white liquid while gagging, and being grateful I didn't have to have it.
Helen Baws on 2020-06-21 12:36:37 +0000My mother must have been given a private stash of the stuff, thanks to the creation of the NHS. I was born with rickets just after the war and still have a slightly bandy leg to prove it. I can still taste and see the stuff along with a little bottle of orange juice i had every day.
Eric Blackburn on 2020-07-23 10:57:57 +0000I loved Virol and wondered if you can still get it. I'm in my seventies now and can still remember having it when me and my siblings were ill. Never liked rose hip syrup. But loved the little bottles of the orange we used to get from the clinic along with baby formula.
Kathleen Hindhaugh on 2020-08-04 15:00:24 +0000What a treat to read all the above, accidentally discovered while self isolating! I loved Virol - doled out daily by my mother to me and my sisters (2 then 3 of them). I remember it in a brown glass jar with a green lid... and the twist of her wrist as she tried to get it into our eager mouths before it dropped Off the spoon - eager because it took away the disgusting taste of government cod liver oil, that preceded it and was only tolerated because of the rewarding Virol to follow. A flood of memories - including visits to the government office to collect the allocated concentrated orange juice and cod liver oil in small flat bottles with blue screw tops. It was on a sharp corner, (near the port in Rye) with 3 narrow steep steps up to the door- tricky with a bulky push chair, baby, toddler and small child. As to ingredients - i wonder if it contained rose hip and or orange - there was more to it than just the sticky malt! Not much given tob'looking back' i find myself immersed in previously firgotten memories of rationing, sawdust on the butcher's floor, Delrosa rosehip syrup, junket, school milk and so on - also the extremely small fridge, meat safe in a proper larder (even in a brand new house), home bottled victoria plums - And so much more...
Anne on 2020-11-11 11:16:03 +0000For some obscure reason, my mother considered I need Virol as a child in the sixties. I thought it was disgusting and, although she insisted for a long time, the jar (a jar) ended up languishing in the back of the kitchen cupboard for years... And now I want to make a malt loaf, the cupboard is bare!
Timothy on 2020-11-26 12:38:28 +0000I definitely believe Virol was a malt product rather than a meat product! I haven't been able to find anything quite like it since though with all due respect to H.& B.! I'd buy it now if it was available on the market! It certainly was liked in our household! My mother nick named it "lollipop spoon"!
Helen Kelso on 2021-02-04 11:35:38 +0000As '50's children, my twin sister and I had a daily dose of Robeleine Malt Extract. The most delicious thing ever!! Still dream of it to this day!
Diane on 2021-03-28 10:17:35 +0000Born at the end of WWII and having had TB from an early age I was always given Malt and Virol which I loved......my older Brother and Sister had to stomach a daily dose of free Cod Liver Oil which I absolutely loathed and refused to open my mouth to take!
Trish on 2021-05-14 03:22:37 +0000Myself and my older brother used to have cod liver oil and malt every evening before bed, loved it and sure built us up after the war. Desert spoon each. Stuck to the spoon so you were licking it for ever. Big deep brown jar so you got it on you hand trying to get to the bottom when it was nearly empty. Remember as if it was yesterday.
Keith Hargreaves on 2021-09-21 19:51:54 +0000Hello, I recently dug up a Virol glass jar. I am puzzled as I have only ever seen pictures of the stoneware and amber/brown glass jars and the one I found is clear glass. Does anyone remember clear glass Virol jars or know roughly when it might date back to?
Emma on 2021-11-21 19:24:46 +0000