Life is Sweeties — Audrey Gillan

Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Observer

Originally broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland

Christine Gillan is a sales rep with a difference. For 35 years she has been selling sweeties to the corner shops and cafes of Glasgow, Lanarkshire and Dumbartonshire. Hers is the world of the Polly PanDrop, the Chocolate Russian Caramel, the Soor Ploom and the Rich butter Perfection Toffee. She does all her calls in person and has always shunned electronic ordering systems. In a lyrical programme, we accompany Christine on this, her last week in the job before she retires. We share her bittersweet farewell to this world of sugar and delight, and in between we hear about her daughter, journalist Audrey Gillan's, fascination with this world of sweeties as she was growing up, with her mum at the centre of it.