THE robust and rather crunchy bus depot at Barrow and ripped apart and chomped by a giant monster on national television 35 years ago.

It was the debut of the iconic Muncher from Chewits with its insatiable appetite for eating the Hindpool depot — where Barrow Borough Council kept its bus fleet.

The front page of The Mail, on September 19, in 1983, noted: "A genial-looking monster smacked his lips last night over a tube of chewy sweets and pronounced them 'much better than Barrow-in-Furness bus depot'."

London-based Advertising executive Peter Cowrie said: "The monster is The Muncher and he likes to eat buildings."

The Muncher went on to tear great lumps out of the Empire State Building and the Taj Mahal — but even they could not match Chewits for taste.

Barrow transport manager Derek Gwynn said: "We had a request from the advertising agency to use the name of the bus depot and the council didn't object."

Chewits were born in 1965 at Holland's toffee factory in Victoria Street, Southport.

Production was moved to Slovakia in 2006 by owners Coletta.

The famous Chewits advertisements were revived in 2015 to mark the 50th anniversary of the product — by which time the real Hindpool bus depot had been demolished to make way for more Barrow shops.