KIT KAT CLUB? –
Jan. 12, 2026 – One night last spring I lay in bed with my heart pounding and my hands shaking. I’d eaten a huge bar of chocolate and my body was in revolt. This was crazy. I simply had to stop. I knew I had a sugar addiction and I knew it wasn’t something that could be resolved purely by willpower. Could a “sugar detox” retreat be the cure?
Sugar was everywhere in my 1960s childhood. My parents had come through the war (my father was in the Navy; my mother lived through the Blitz) and they remembered rationing all too well. So Mum baked like a demon as if to make up for lost time and calories: Victoria sponges, shortbread, scones, rock cakes, seed cake, butterfly cakes, treacle toffee. I was allowed to lick the bowl as a treat. If the cake tin was empty, I’d roll little balls of butter in sugar. Once I started at school, sweets were a home-time ritual – we’d barrel into the sweet shop and spend our pocket money on penny chews, sherbet dabs or an eighth of rhubarb and custard.
