THE government's new sugar tax on fizzy drinks would have surprised the founders of classic Cumbria pop makers such as Marsh's and Underwood's.

There was no problem with obesity in the late 1800s when these popular producers first quenched the thirst of people in Barrow and Carlisle.

Children of 14 were still working 10-day days in factories and most adults were doing hard manual work in mines and quarries, docks, mills and on the farms.

Sugar was seen as a food to give you energy rather than empty calories to make you fat - how our Cumbrian lifestyles have changed!

Now manufacturers face a tax rate equivalent to 24p per litre on drinks with more than eight grams of sugar per 100ml, or 18p on drinks with five to eight grams.

This could see some cans rise by up to 8p and 500mm bottles by up to 12p.

The expected £240m this will raise is being invested in schools sports and breakfast clubs.

Turn the clock back to the 1960s and 1970s and many Cumbrian families waited for the weekly arrival of the pop wagon.

You would be left with a heavy plastic crate with combinations of favourite fizzy drinks such as Sass, cherryade, dandelion and burdock, orange crush, cream soda, lemonade, pineappleade, or ginger beer.

The origins of the Barrow mineral water firm Marsh's goes back to the 19th century.

It seems to have been started by Walter Marsh, who by Edwardian times was living in School Street, Barrow.

The pop was produced by Len Marsh to the end of the

1960s at a bottling plant in Duke Street, passed to the Brady family and eventually to Mitchell’s of Lancaster.

Marsh’s Sass - short for Sarsaparilla -was produced to a

secret recipe and up to £300 has been paid for a full bottle in charity auctions.

There was once a Marsh’s Sass shop on Barrow’s Dalton Road which gave rise to a skipping tune used by children.

It went: “Marsh’s Sass a penny a glass. When you drink it, it goes splash.”

The Underwood’s Mineral Water Company was formed by Carlisle-born William Underwood in 1880.

He died in 1889 and his wife Frances continued the business with their sons and built its best-known base, The Crown Works.

By 1902 the firm was able to advertise: "After a fair trial extending over a period of 20 years, the public have given a popular verdict in favour of Underwood’s famous beverages."

Frances died in March 1919, aged 84, and other members of the family kept the firm going, later trading as Underwood and McMichaels.