As we hit the first anniversary of lockdown, I realise it’s people and places that I’m really hungry for

There were two branches of Thorntons in Sheffield when I was growing up, but because only one of them was by a stop for our bus, family shopping trips always involved, until I was in possession of hard cash myself, a certain amount of faux-casual, ruthlessly opportunistic manipulation. Basically, if you could persuade your mum to take this route (as opposed to that route) around town, you’d wind up at the aforementioned bus stop rather than the very bleak one opposite Barry Noble’s Roxy Nite Spot, at which point there was every chance that she would buy you a quarter of special toffee as you waited for the number 51. The best strategy was to look meekly un-needy; to breathe in the buttery smells wafting from its door while never actually asking for the goods themselves. Pleased by your forbearance, the offer would then be made – unless the bus appeared first, in which case you’d have to make do with a corned beef sandwich back at home.

I thought about those long ago shopping trips as I read the obituaries of Tony Thornton, the chocolate maker’s former chairman, who died in January (his grandfather founded the company, which recently announced plans to close all its shops, in Sheffield in 1911). Ah, for the days when my idea of an unimprovably posh chocolate was a Viennese truffle. But in these times, thinking is not enough, is it? As we arrive, pale-faced and blinking, at the first anniversary of the first lockdown, I’m beset by sudden cravings – urgent longings on which I must act immediately. Putting down the newspaper, I ran to my desk. Minutes later, I’d added a bag of special toffee to my weekly supermarket haul, where it joined various other items I haven’t eaten in years, the most embarrassing of which was … actually, I can’t bear to tell you that.