CEREBOS SALT SHAKER AND PEPPER SHAKER

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by Dave Roberts

Sometimes the most poignant reminders of our town's long salt town history are the simplest and the most mundane. 

Salt and pepper shakers like this were at one time so commonplace as to pass almost unnoticed.
Millions of kitchen and dining room tables were once graced by them, though not all of them were used as promotional items. 

Plain glass ones with no logo on them were ten a penny.

And most of them, of course, didn't have  the word 'salt' (or 'pepper') on them, either - their glass construction and distinctive metal tops making it very difficult to get them mixed up.

All the different brands of salt had their own versions of these items (I used a 'Sifta' salt shaker just like this one at a Methodist church in Elworth only last year) but there's something very nostalgic about this particular set, and for a very personal reason.

It reminds me so much of childhood days when my Dad was foreman electrician at the works in Booth Lane  and the Cerebos name ran through all our days like Blackpool runs through rock.

And that classy blue Cerebos logo was all part of the mystique (though, it goes without saying, we wouldn't have known a 'mystique' if one fell on us).

The word 'salt' doesn't appear on the salt shaker to distinguish it from the pepper.
It's a simple advert for Cerebos Salt.

Presumably the pepper is just labelled 'pepper' because, to many people, any old pepper would do.

But don't run away with the idea that there was (and is) no such thing as Cerebos Pepper.

It's still on the market today. Here's a rather upmarket  version of it...

...using the classic Cerebos trade-mark and even, somewhat disconcertingly, the
See How It Runs catch-line which, you'd have thought might be reserved exclusively for that free-running table salt.

In fact, next time you need to buy a gift for that special person in your life,  you might consider  buying a complete Cerebos gift set...