Taste and Flavour

When I was a wee child in Sunday School for some reason I used to sing "Thank you for your taste and flavour" instead of "Thank you for your grace and favour". Possibly because as a weenie I could understand the former but not the latter.

In actual fact it was probably simply a false memory generated a little later in life when I thought it would be funny.

Many years ago in the Sixties my mother succumbed to a very bad bout of 'flu. She was in bed for a while with the doctor in attendance. She recovered. However her ability to taste diminished. Later in life after another bout of 'flu her ability to taste reduced considerably. Oddly my ability to taste also diminished after various bouts of 'flu. My last one was at Christmas 2000. My ability to taste is now very poor but seemingly random. Some things I can taste quite well and many not at all. Like my mother I realised that for me texture is far more important than flavour when eating many foods.

My parents were very active until their late 80s and 90s but, obviously the energy they expended as they got less active decreased as did their need for food. However Dad still enjoyed his food whereas Mum did not. For her food was simply fuel although I remember she developed a liking for packetted Vesta Curry in her mid '80s. I assume they were meat although my mother had never really enjoyed eating meat. However they were very easy to prepare when they were still living in their own house. She also loved omelettes.

All this has come back to me in the last year or so now I've reached 80. I still enjoy cooking but really only for other people because that provides an incentive to do something interesting. I find cooking for myself a chore which gets in the way of other things I want to do but my body still needs fuel.

I eat exceptionally slowly which adds to the boredom factor. So I have routines for getting through meals when I'm alone. Breakfast I do Wordle and Words with Friends. Lunchtime I do a crossword. Dinner I usually watch the news. 

What does food mean to you?

Coughing and Schooling

Over the last 10 years or so I have been learning things about the private primary prep school to which I went up until the age when I took the 11+ examination (which in England determined whether you went to a grammar school or a secondary modern school). The streaming system was very academically and socially divisive. 

I assume when it was thought up the idea was to stream academically minded people towards academia and university and 'the rest' to more practical education. I passed the 11+ with flying colours and was awarded the first choice of school which my parents had specified when I took the exam. 

That was Quarry Bank Grammar School in Liverpool. It was the home of many who became illustrious people. John Lennon was a few classes ahead of me. He was eccentric even at school. He also started a group at school called The Quarrymen.  However everything there was aimed at getting those who were Oxford or Cambridge material to one of those Universities.

Unfortunately at the age of around 14/15 I developed a disease called bronchiectasis.

It is a disease which is often fatal. It is often also associated with poverty and lifestyle. It is very common in the Pacific Islands. When I lived in New Zealand the niece of the then Governor General of New Zealand succumbed. She was the same age as I was when I succumbed. The difference was that she was not expected to live. She became a campaigner for better health education and lifestyle for Pacific Islanders in particular.  I believe that she died shortly after I left New Zealand.

My bronchiectasis was caused by the smogs (cloyingly thick smoke laden freezing fogs) common in cities in the UK in the '40s and '50s before the Clean Air Acts banned the use of coal in domestic fires. It had consumed the lower lobe of my right lung.

The result was that I had a wracking cough particularly during my last year at school. It was rather disruptive in class and a number of the teachers just kicked me out of the class. I joined the Natural History Society and the Beekeeping Society so that instead of just standing outside the classroom as I was bidden I went and looked after animals and bees. 

I have had a great love and respect for bees ever since. I have had a rather jaundiced opinion of teachers ever since. I left school as soon as I was legally able to. 

So far as the disease was concerned I was one of the fortunate ones. I had an operation to remove much of my right lung and I have coped admirably in the 64 years since the operation (by the surgeon Mr Leslie Temple). Oddly I can recall his name and many of the nurses I worked with in the Hospital after I left school. It's a shame I have difficulty remembering my own name these days. 

The real point of this post, though, is that teachers and 'the system' thought it was quite acceptable to deny an equal education to anyone if they felt like it. The idea of simply kicking people out of a classroom now because of a disability is, I hope, completely anathema.