August 2010
Food, food, Glorious Food. What would we do without our ability to smell? There would be such a lot of pleasure lost without our fifth sense. Unfortunately, it is not prized as much as our other faculties, sight, hearing, taste, and touch, but without the sense of smell we wouldn’t be able to taste.
Smells are an important part of our lives, sadly underrated, invoking memories both pleasant and unpleasant.
Delving down deep into my childhood I can remember the pungent odour of tar they used to put down on the road to repair it from potholes. The not too bad smell of horses manure dropped as they walked along, which we used to gather and sell to householders for a penny a bucket to make the flowers grow, funny that, now that I come to think about it, nothing was wasted in those days!!!! The scent of the ’Cats Meat Man.’ He smelt of the meat he carried and the cats that followed him down the street. Then, of course, there was the not too unpleasant odour of the air raid shelters, where we had to go when the sirens sounded their warning. We used to sit in them during the day, together with our teachers, and sing as loud as we could in order to drown out the sound of bombs dropping and the rattle of our brave boys replying with the anti-aircraft guns. ’Mares Eat Dotes,’ ‘Run Rabbit, Run Rabbit,’ and ’Hey Little Hen’ were among our favourite songs!!!! When we came out of the shelter after the ’All Clear’ we could smell, and almost taste the acrid air caused by the raid.
Of course smell is individual to each person. I find the smell of coffee and celery, revolting therefore, am unable to eat or drink either. But, unlike some people, I love the aroma of Indian, Chinese, Italian and English food. I loved coming home from school to the lovely bouquet of my mother’s cooking. I could almost taste the food by just the scent of it. Each meal had its own individual odour and I pity the kids of today who go home to ready bought instant meals, or, perhaps just a quick snack in front of the television rather than a gorgeous meal of meat and two veg, steamed fish, freshly cooked salmon, homemade soup or some exotic fry-up.
There are lovely sweet smells, of course. Perfume, make-up, which bring back wonderful memories of my Clubbing Days. It wasn’t called Clubbing then. They were rather staid dances, mainly ballroom until Jive kicked in. Men had the prerogative of asking the girls to dance. It took a lot of courage for them to do so as the ladies had the choice to refuse the invitation. The aroma of perfume brings back the days of the lovely ballrooms and the big bands, no records or DJs in those days, just great, innocent evenings enjoyed by most people without an over dose of drink or drugs.
And who said ’Wake up and Smell the Roses?’ It goes without saying that scents from a beautiful garden can make one feel almost drunk and certainly puts a smile on the face.
There are numerous other lovely smells - pets, babies, the fresh smell of the earth after the rain, the heady smell coming off the sea, clean washing, clean house, and the disinfectant odour wafting around hospitals, the tangy smell of a burning wood pile, the exciting smell of smoke from a lighted cigarette.
There are poo smells, of course, but we don’t talk about them!!!!!!
Every person has their favourite smell, which invokes nostalgic memories happy or sad.