Can you solve the Fruit Gums secret?

[Heather74]

Nice clear copy on Ebay along with poster NO.2 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/175665408...&segname=11051

[CallmeAl]

In July, August & September of 1982 Rowntree ran a competition to "solve the Fruit Gums secret" and win a time-share. You had to collect three posters that were given away in various publications (I got mine from the Eagle comic) and deduce an address from clues hidden in the pictures on all three.

Anyone remember this? and can anyone work out what the address is? With a bit of luck, scans of the posters should be below.

The competition requirements were for a full name (first name and surname), house number, street name, town, county and post code, all hidden in the pictures

Royal Mail's PAF won't really help! I think the post code doesn't exist any longer

Runners up won a Raleigh Grifter or Honey (!) and a Fruit Gums certificate. Anyone have one?


EDIT.. Click thumb nails to enlarge on the forum.

Finally - some answers! My Dad called up royal mail at the time (I guess?) to try and find out the address the post code belonged to and they sussed him out, apart from the fact I guess it didn’t exist, but I have wondered all this time on and off where it was and what happened and if anyone actually won as it’s clearly so difficult!

What a shame Rowntrees haven’t archived this.

Thanks so much for this thread! So nice to see the posters again. I am pretty sure mine came from Look-in!

[Fearmint]

The only throughts I have are: In the poster of the girl the packet of fruit gums appears to say "FINGERS" could this be a pointer that we should pay attention to the number of fingers?

"I Like Them" could it indicate 1LT ?

The postcode has already been revealed, so that can't be the case... and I think we might all be overthinking it!

So far, my thinking has been:

First+Surname	MIKE LEITH (or KEITH LIME or MIKE LITHE)	In #3 (Anagram of words on badge)
House Number	79	In #1 (Birds, panel 1; Flowers, panel 4)
Street Name	Cherry Tree Road	In #2 (Picture on wall - cherry trees, and a road!)
Town
County	Herts	In #3 (Bracelet - hearts, panel 1)
Post Code	HP73 5FG	In #1 (Footer - clue revealed on the reverse of #2 and #3)

If my suggestions are credible it might imply that there are two clues per poster, and that the town name might most likely be in poster #2. And it seems improbable that the text between, or hidden by fingers is irrelevant, so surely must be the clue... but I've run out of steam on it

[Mark-8]

Just to let you guys know you can see some of the covers bearing the invitation to solve the puzzle on this excellent site here:

[Mark-8]

The only throughts I have are: In the poster of the girl the packet of fruit gums appears to say "FINGERS" could this be a pointer that we should pay attention to the number of fingers?

"I Like Them" could it indicate 1LT ?

[Mark-8]

indeed, Scooby Doo readership around 5-8 years old from my experience.

yeah the competition says it is specifically only open to under 15's which is a bit weird. It does say "you should tell your parents" lol it also says it is for two weeks of a year. So I imagine 2 weeks a year until the £10,000 runs out.

The issue I had I had bought off ebay earlier this year and had the poster missing and the competition had ended before I started getting the comic back in the day in 1982.

It would be interesting to know if anyone had experience of entering the competition.

I don't think results printed in the comics. I have a number of Scooby Doo comics so could look but guessing it would be November/December issue. However the comic issue #29 has no mentions of the competition inside and they slightly typo'd the compeition as the "Fruit Gum Secret" rather than the "Fruit Gums Secret"

[Fearmint]

ok so all 3 would have appeard in the Scooby Doo and his T.V. friends comic (as well as all the other comics) during July, August, September. Cool. Thanks for your help sixtyten.

Exactly right. They appeared in many comics in circulation at that time; Eagle, 2000AD, Roy of the Rovers, etc, and now clearly Scooby Doo comic.
I would have thought that the readership age for Scooby Doo would've been younger than for Eagle (where I got the scans I posted in this thread,) and certainly younger than that of 2000AD, so I have no idea how the hell they were expected to solve it!

nitpicking but are they equating forever to be equivalent to a limit of £10.000.

I have had time-shares explained to me in detail several times by my parents who have been using one for decades and it still makes no sense. The basic principle is fine, but how costs work is just gibberish.

[Mark-8]

ok so all 3 would have appeard in the Scooby Doo and his T.V. friends comic (as well as all the other comics) during July, August, September. Cool. Thanks for your help sixtyten.

nitpicking but are they equating forever to be equivalent to a limit of £10.000.

Thanks for indulging me. The strapline on the comic intriguged me.

[sixtyten]

[sixtyten]

right click them and open in a new window

[Mark-8]

The three Posters are shown in the thread starter and the backs of the posters are shared a little further into the thread?

Hi Heather, thanks for your reply, the back of the posters doesn't zoom-in when you click on it. it just an orange screen.

The three posters at the start of the thread do zoom-in fine however. This seems to be an extremly difficult puzzle. not sure how many kids would make progress with it.

[Heather74]

Would there have been a poster back in the day?

The three Posters are shown in the thread starter and the backs of the posters are shared a little further into the thread?

[Mark-8]

Hello, I was puzzled by this "Do you know the fruit gum secret?" on the cover but no clue inside. Would there have been a poster back in the day? I uploaded this comic but I got it off ebay and there was no poster and I can find nothing written up inside the comic regarding this.

https://archive.org/details/scooby-d...ember-8th-1982

[Mental Mickey]

The badge she's wearing in the third poster says I LIKE THEM, which is an anagram of I LIKE METH.
Hope this helps.

[sky_9999]

The imagebam links to the reverses still work, but for some reason, the DYR image viewer doesn't open them.
https://www.imagebam.com/image/ae335637724718/
https://www.imagebam.com/image/38e81f37724775/
https://www.imagebam.com/image/1cb57937724735/

Thanks, that's a great help. Not much of a help in solving the puzzle designed for children, but a help none-the-less.