Southend U3A

Smells (through the eyes of a child) - Jill Lane

August 2010

'Mummy,' my three year old asked, 'what colour is a smell?'

'What colour is a smell?' I had never been asked that question before - 'No, Tony, a smell is just a way of describing something that smells, it may be a nice smell like a perfume or an aroma, or a nasty smell that you don't like.'

'Well,' he asked, 'what colour is a nice smell?'

After much deliberation he decided a nice smell is pink. Later on whilst drinking a cup of coffee, Tony asked, 'What colour drink are you drinking, mum?'

Bearing in mind our previous conversation, I offered him a smell of the coffee. 'Urgh!' he said, 'That's nasty!'

‘Well then, you tell me what colour it is . . . ’

Once again we deliberated what colour a nasty smell is, and Tony decided it was purple, so I had to agree I was drinking a purple drink.

For a few days life was a little complicated as Tony smelt everything before eating it to decide what colour the food was. I would get requests like, ‘I would like a green smell and an orange smell and a yellow smell for my dinner, please.’

Oh dear, in the end he got what he was given. Fortunately he soon forgot about, ‘What colour is a smell, mum?’ and life returned to normal, but I had to agree that pink is a nice colour for a nice smell!