Nicole Burns from Cootehill with Ollie Mc Ardle.

To celebrate Cootehill's fair day last Sunday, e:volve computer repair centre held a free competition which had a little bit of history attached.

Before we opened Evolve Computer Repair Centre at No. 18 Market Street, Cootehill," recalls Ollie Mc Ardle, "the shop was owned by Molly Rice (deceased 2004) and was the most popular sweet shop in the world for anybody who had ever visited it! Molly was renowned for having the patience of a saint while waiting for each and every child to have 'one of them and two of them and one of them' and so on to infinity!

"The wooden counter was visibly worn down in the exact spot where all the sweets were counted over the many years! She would then hand them over in a 'poke', which was a little twisted cone made out of, probably, Anglo Celt newspaper!

To celebrate our ninth year of business, and also the Cootehill Fair Day, we delved into our shop's history and produced a retro window filled with the original sweet shop antiques, photos and old post cards with local images (the shop was also the local post office at one stage). And to add a zing of interest to the event for the younger members of the crowd we filled a massive jar, over three quarters of a meter high, of sweets which was to be won by one lucky person who guessed the number of sweets in the jar."

The jar contained 1011 sweets and the lucky winner was Nicole Burns from Cootehill who guessed 1012 sweets and was the closest guess. "The highest guess we had," says Ollie, "was 600,000 which was a bit hopeful!

"Nicole collected her bounty today and is a very happy wee lassie as you can only imagine! Many thanks to the Rice family for assisting in the setup of "Molly's Retro Window" and supplying all the items displayed within!"