Scents and Sensibility (repost)

A relevant book by my former History teacher (CCB 1975-1980)

Over the last few weeks an old post, Expatriotism, has been attracting some attention. So I thought it might be of interest to re-post another, which I was nearly as happy with. (At least, it may be of interest to those who happened to grow up in East Belfast in the 1960s).

You can read it here too Scents and sensibility

Dreadful pun though it may be, the title captures the theme of this post (I was going to say essence, but that would compound the sin).

I'm losing my sense of smell. This is not some private affliction, though its loss to me is certainly personal; it's less a symptom of aging than of the age itself. With regard to other cognitive faculties we are told to "use it or lose it", but my nose hasn't got a chance, really. It's not for want of trying, but for lack of stimulus, that the sense of smell is gradually giving up its ghost. The same homogenisation of popular culture that has turned every high street into a paltry clone of the next, has done the same for the smells, pongs, stinks, odours, aromas and perfumes that used to infest them. Actually, it's done for most kinds of smells altogether: "reeks" have gone the way of smallpox, leaving only feeble "scents", and pathetic "hints" of this and that...It's not only that everywhere smells the same, everywhere smells of nothing much at all.

For perfect accompaniment to the next paragraph, click here:

As a child, for instance, I remember being taken shopping by my great-aunt along the Upper Newtownards Road in Belfast. First, we'd go to a newsagent just opposite Evelyn Avenue: you walked in to the smell of old broadsheets, packets of Players, Sherbet Lemons, and furniture polish mixed with shoe cream. In the butcher's shop further down, other mixtures breezed around on the draft under the door: sawdust, blood, fresh sausages, cured bacon, mingled with smoked haddock from the fish counter, and wicker shopping baskets. Further down still was the bakery (on a street called Bread), and Irvine's shoe shop: a new pair of shoes used to colour my bedroom for a fortnight at least. And nearer home, a weekly dose of woody mustiness in Ballyhackamore Post Office filled out my sense of place.

I also remember the stench from the Lagan and the nearby gas-holders on summer days in Victoria Park: since the barrier was built, and gas is 'natural', that's gone too, as has the fantastic smell from Gallaher's cigarette factory, the coal lorries on their delivery runs, fumes of leaded petrol and old diesel.

[1;40] ...Call it pagan streams, and it spins and turns/In a factory on a street called Bread, in East Belfast, where Georgie knows Best, what it's like to be Daniel in the Lion's den, so many friends, only most of the time... (Van Morrison, Ancient Highway)

All these have vanished, and with them an olfactory topography of East Belfast, replaced by the same vapid nondescription found in Bracknell, Boston, and—for all I know—Bogota. The term "air quality" refers only to levels of noxious carcinogens, eye-watering sulphurs, particulates and their gritty ilk: the contemporary ideal is sterility, absence.

Nowadays, even milk goes off without emitting any cloying warning of its transition to unpalatability. This may of course be good for those of us with a toddler who regularly dribbles said liquid across the back seat of the car; time was, this meant a new car in extreme cases! But it should raise concerns, even among the sanguine, about food science and genetic modification.

It's not just the undesirable smells that have been driven from these islands: I can't recall the last time I noticed aftershave or perfume in a public place—or come to that a private one. We've become a Simple^TMr generation: washed yet unperfumed, cleansed but literally unremarkable, and the poorer for it. (This is not universal: many Italian and French women still inhabit scented microcosms, other European men retain their nasal sensibilities, but the Anglo-American world is aggressively fragrance-free.)

Most likely, this is just another Golden Age rant: no doubt something has been gained by the expulsion of scents and sinners, but I suspect much more has been surrendered. When bemoaning the loss of biodiversity, we should spare a thought for our noses too. If I were a dog, I would weep at such sterility (or whatever dogs do instead).