Myles Away From Dublin (22 page)

Christmas Day can have its little tragedies, too, and this year I was myself at the receiving end of what seems to be a massive threat to us all on a grand scale – the production and distribution of non-food. For many years an old friend has been sending me a turkey as a Christmas present. The turkey arrived this year as usual but hey! – it was in a special sort of a box! My ben-a-tee raised the alarm, said it was frozen, and that she had no idea of handling such matters. Nor had I. But the best that could be done was done, and the centre-piece of the Christmas dinner to which we all sat down was a generous portion of old bicycle tyres. I suppose I should not write with such precision, since I’ve never actually tried to eat old bicycle, but that turkey tasted as old bicycle tyres should. All the parsley sauce and salt in the world made no difference. It was awful.

Three things are possible. One – unlikely – is that the bird was a normal one from an Irish farm which had been killed early in December and frozen to guard against delays in marketing. A second possibility is that it was a ‘battery’ bird, artificially incubated, never released from the hatchery, fattened on synthetic food and chemicals, then killed and frozen. The third possibility was that it was a turkey from the real deep freeze which means that it could be a warrior who perished as long ago as 1958.

One way or another, the supplier was guilty of plain fraud. What he supplied and was paid for was not a turkey as people understand the word.

Yet the shock of this most unfestive encounter perhaps shows that I am as innocent as a child behind it all. In newspaper reports about the turkey market in London I had read references to ‘mass-produced’ and ‘oven-ready’. I take that last term to mean what most of
us understand by the word turkey, and that the other two are spook-turkeys full of chemicals and carrying bogus meat, possibly poisonous.

I did not think that this could happen in Ireland in the case of Christmas turkeys but this business, ghastly and probably dangerous to health as well, has been going on for at least a year in Dublin and the larger towns in the case of chickens, usually dubbed ‘broiler chickens’. These are on view all the year round in the shops of grocers, butchers, fish-merchants and
publicans
, priced 7/6 and 12/-, ready to take away and pop in the oven (if raw) or put straight on the table for a cold banquet if already done to an enchanting brown. In some of the more opulent pubs, indeed, there is a spectacular revolving spit on which a chicken is being grilled as you watch.

I am told that the entire production procedure is automatic and that chickens of the desired weight are turned out by the 1,000 merely by controlling certain switches, dials and gauges after the machine has been charged with eggs, ‘food’ and certain varieties of ‘nourishing rays’. The chicks when they emerge see neither mother nor daylight, ingest chemical
nourishment
and bogus fattening substances and are ready for slaughter – also mechanised – IN THREE WEEKS! To try to eat a chicken which has never seen a blade of grass or chased a worm is quite an experience but not one that any sensible person is likely to attempt twice.

Can this atrocious debauchment of nature also be undertaken with cattle? Could a calf be artificially suckled, reared and fattened in a magic manger or electronic stall to provide, ultimately, uneatable
laboratory
beef?

And pigs? Can those brutes be managed, by means of a diabolical machine, so that by pressing a button an endless string of unearthly sausages come pouring out of the end of the humming installation?

I will not press this line of thought by inquiring whether human beings could be looked after this way
also but I say it is amazing and shameful that public health authorities, central and local, have so far taken no notice of a money-making activity which may well be a threat to the well-being and even the lives of the people.

Many stupid, ignorant and unnecessary things are said in the Dáil. How about our hard-working deputies giving their attention to this sort of menace?

That was a neat, satirical way to express the outlook of … whom? The average Englishman? Or all of us? Unlikely as it may seem, the lines were written by Robert Louis Stevenson, whose personal infirmity ensured that he at least did not stay at home, damp and cold, but made him pack up and sail for sunny Samoa.

It is quite true that most of us shrink from the unaccustomed, whether it be in food, drink, weather, clothes or even music. With Dr Samuel Smiles (what an awful name!) our motto is TO STAY AT HOME IS BEST. But even at home there can be danger.

Look what happened to a lot of people recently. On their own dinner tables on Dec. 25 there was a wonderful succulent turkey and, with everything that went with it, it was immensely enjoyed. There was cold turkey the next day, of course, and that was quite acceptable. The evening after, one went to visit some friends, and they insisted on a bit of supper before parting. Well, yes, the cold turkey was all right. When one gets home, there is excitement in the house. A big turkey, a present from an old friend which had been held up in the post, had arrived. It meant, of course, hot roast turkey the next day, and the possibility of cold turkey for at least two days more. Visiting friends is now a serious risk, for there seems to be turkey everywhere.

Something frighteningly similar happened to myself several years ago when I arrived at a good, small hotel in Glengariff. Going to bed the first night, I jokingly said to the manageress that I would expect two grilled, freshly-caught trout for breakfast. That was exactly what I got, to the astonishment of myself and my companion. For lunch he got magnificent roast beef, but I got two more for the evening meal. Next morning – what? Two grilled trout.

We had a car and I suggested to my companion that we should take a trip to Killarney, which we did, and had lunch of lobster. Back in Glengariff again. Next morning I got my two trout. We mitched again at lunchtime. I was determined not to climb down in that hotel but a stay that had been planned for eight days was cut down to four.

Consider that king of all freshwater fish, the salmon. Last season there was a glut of salmon and the bottom fell out of the market. This had several unexpected results, one of which was a succession of rows in
fish-and
-chips shops. The seasoned customer, when served with his order, stared at it, stirred it and then sent for the boss.

What was this he was getting, he asked. ‘My dear sir,’ the boss replied proudly, ‘for once in my life I’m not serving ray. That’s REAL FRESH SALMON!’ His market research (if we may call it that) was poor. The customer said he had ordered fish and chips, fish and chips was what he wanted, and if this happened again, he would take his custom elsewhere. And he stiffly departed, having eaten nothing.

Quite recently I read a nostalgic article about fishing on the Boyne, and how sadly it had declined since the good old days. An old document was quoted showing that in the contracts of service of the men employed on the fisheries (presumably at netting operations) they should not be expected to have salmon in the meals supplied oftener than twice a week.

It is not easy to explain why some foods – particularly
attractive, expensive, festive foods – tend to pall in this fashion with only moderate over-supply. And it is just as hard to know why the more commonplace things can be placed on the table day after day for ever and ever – bread, butter, cakes, biscuits, marmalade,
potatoes
, beef, lamb, rashers, eggs – without anybody making the slightest comment or objection.

What about tea, particularly in rural Ireland? The pot is
always
on the hob in some homes, and even the postman is asked in for a cup when he calls. Appetite for tea cannot apparently ever be saturated, and that applies to all ages and sexes.

There is another drink and I have seen men capable of taking plenty of it every day, every night as well, sometimes, and go to immense trouble to get it when it is not handy – or handed out: I mean whiskey. It never even occurs to them to change over to tea, though they probably know that tea can be immensely improved with a little whiskey in it.

There is quite a to-do at present about still another article that does not confer disgust with over indulgence in it. Yes, indeed. Have you got a match?

This is 1964. If you doubt me, reader, take a look at the extreme top of this page. I have been looking over some old newspapers and magazines and find it hard to believe that very nearly a quarter of a century has passed since World War II was declared.

Many people reading this had not been born in 1939, and as many again had not been thought of in the sense that their parents had not yet met. It makes myself feel very oiled: very old, I mean. Those war years were an extraordinary time in Ireland and we were, of course, merely on the edge of the real thing.

We were living in a grim sort of fairyland, not really understanding the enormous issue then being decided, not realising the fabulous slaughter that was in progress at various fronts, and certainly unaware that 6 million Jews were being quietly exterminated in Germany. By ‘we’ I mean those of us who stayed at home: a great number of younger people departed to take a hand in the bloody game, and not all of them returned.

The homeland memory that survives is one of bleakness, uncertainty, rationing of essentials, black marketeering, the ascendency of the chancer, and the infiltration of Irish society by a great number of the young ‘conchie’ brigade from Britain. Only in retrospect does one realise how precarious that neutrality of ours was.

It is curious that in a situation of momentous climax for the world, it was trivialities which stand out in the mind here. Cigarettes were scarce: one had to have the leg of a tobacconist to get as many as five on demand, served loose. Simple essentials such as bread, butter, eggs, bacon and beef were rationed. Did I say bread?

This was a grey, crumbling substance apparently compounded of barnyard corn, concrete, sweepings
from barbers’ shops and coke. The national newspapers consisted of four pages of very condensed matter printed on grey ‘paper’ which had a faintly unpleasant smell.

Petrol was, of course, very strictly rationed on a coupon basis and none allowed to anybody who was not on ‘essential service’, which everybody tried to be. To get a gallon costing 3/6, you had first to buy a coupon costing up to 7/6 on the black market. To ask a pump attendant for a gallon without having a coupon was equivalent to asking him for a gallon of his blood.

Yet there was one class who never weakened, and that was the civil servants. It is somehow refreshing to read the reply received by a British citizen who applied to the Board of Trade for permission to have two pockets in the trousers of a suit instead of the three officially authorised, and to have the third pocket transferred to the jacket. I give the reply below, as it appeared in
The
Investors’
Chronicle
and
Market
Review
under the heading ‘The Blight of Bureaucracy’.

‘I am to refer to your letter dated March 1 in which you make application for a licence to permit of a suit being made having more pockets than those laid down in the above-mentioned Order.

‘It is noted that you do not require more than two pockets in the trousers and that you would like, instead of the third pocket, to have an extra pocket in the jacket. I am to say that the Board are not prepared to consider the giving up of one pocket in one garment sufficient reason for the granting of an extra pocket in another garment since the restrictions are imposed on the separate garment and not on the suit as a whole.

‘The Board realise, however, that in certain
circumstances
it may be necessary to vary the restrictions and if you will state why you are unable to make use of the third pocket in the trousers (it is not necessary that this pocket should be a hip pocket, the restrictions do not in any way refer to the position of the pockets but only to the total number in each garment) thus necessitating the
extra jacket pocket, full consideration will be given to the issue of a licence. It would also be helpful if you would state the exact use to which the extra pockets in the jacket and waistcoat are to be put.

‘With regard to your request for a small sub-division to the right-side pocket of the jacket, I am to say that this is not regarded as an extra pocket and that no licence will therefore be necessary in respect of this requirement.’

Brave words don’t you think, when Britain had her BACK TO THE WALL.

It was very sudden but the surprise is over now – we all know that we are in the season of Lent. One of the desirable objectives which Vatican Council II studied was that of having a fixed Easter but it is a thing not yet achieved.

Two common words of which hardly anybody knows the real meaning are LENT and FASTING. Lent is a Saxon word which means just Spring, and fasting does not mean merely cutting out a meal during the day, or having much smaller meals: it means having absolutely nothing whatsoever to eat or drink.

Custom has, of course, modified the meaning of both words. It may seem disgraceful to say that Lenten fasting is not what it used to be but even middle-aged people know that such is only the truth. I remember my own grandmother taking her strong tea absolutely black and making horrible faces; and her heroism was even greater than that, for she refused to allow any sugar in it.

But such are human quirks that I personally would be horrified at the idea of tea WITH sugar in it, and I much prefer it with hardly any milk at all. Bread without butter on it was another old-time privation and as for meat, every day was a Friday. Many of those alive today and youngish will murmur, ‘Ah, but the people of those times were far stronger and healthier.’ Were they, though?

They certainly worked harder and what they earned for a hard week’s work would hardly pass for pocket money today. Let us agree they were tougher, and had a more pronounced development in the region of the spine.

Lent itself as a fixed period of deliberate hardship was not always the settled thing we have today. In the early days of the Church the fast in preparation for Easter and some other important occasions was very short but very severe, sometimes being a total fast.

Originally the Easter fast was confined to Holy Week, and the forty-day fast (Quadragesima) was not formally laid down until the Council of Nicaea in 325 but for many centuries there was an absence of uniformity, and purely local customs of fasting, varying enormously in duration and severity, predominated throughout
Christendom
.

In the Middle Ages milk, eggs and meat were prohibited during Lent not only by the Church but by civil law. And diet was not the only matter on which the season of penitence turned; women wore mourning, right up to and including the court of Elizabeth I. Even in the confusion following the Reformation, observance of Lent did not wither away; the Anglican Church tried to preserve it, as did John Wesley.

It may be mentioned that fasting, as a method of self-denial, penance and purification, is by no means a Christian invention; it has been common in many cultures and religions, with great variety in the motives behind it. Fasting after a death, for instance, has been common, whether to placate the ghost of the departed or to make a sort of sacrificial occasion of the break.

Fasting has often been resorted to as an urgent form of prayer to secure something urgently needed such as a good harvest, shoals of fish, or even good weather, or – on the negative side – to avert a plague or some threatened natural disaster.

The rules of fast and abstinence, in Lent as well as out of it, could be straightforward and rigid in a primitive agricultural society. Nowadays in the
complexity
of modern life, where enormous numbers of people are huddled together in cities and communally
employed in factories, workshops and offices, it is recognised that it is physically impossible or nearly so for the individual to order his personal affairs in matters of eating or attending religious observances on
workdays
.

Psychological and neurotic obstacles abound; large numbers who seek a dispensation from the fast get it, and we cannot guess how many grant a dispensation to themselves; it is usually enough that a person who has a wakeful conscience does not ignore it but devises exercises in self-denial which may in fact be much more onerous than those prescribed.

And here we are back, I am afraid, to smoking. Long before the lung cancer scare was heard of, it was quite usual for tens of thousands of heavy smokers to cut out cigarettes completely during Lent – and without
reading
books on how to do it, consulting psychoanalysts or taking pills guaranteed to make cigarettes taste
poisonous
.

And there are plenty of them still with us and they still cannot explain why they joyfully light up again on Easter Saturday, even though they have completely broken the habit.

Perhaps somebody should compile a complete new form of abstinence, or several from which to choose. Suppose you determined during Lent never to look at a newspaper or listen to a radio news bulletin? to say not one word more than is necessary?

To wash the dishes after every meal in your own house (if you happen to be a husband)? To pick on something you loathe – e.g., factory-made raspberry jam – and have it at every meal? Read half a novel by Dickens every day? As often as possible sit through films you know you’ve seen before?

I am afraid original people trying out such systems would be disseminating Lent – making others as well as themselves suffer, ending up perhaps by causing a breach of the peace.