Where
were the sanitary inspectors
The
Rambler looks back
at how hygiene used
to be treated
(The Rambler)
ALL the publicity about the food
poisoning set me wondering.
How
did people escape E. Coli and so on in the days when animals were slaughtered in
outhouses on farms where there wasn't even basic hygiene? I recall how delighted
we were on our way home from primary school to get a chance to operate a
sausage-making machine in a local slaughterhouse.
One
lad fed the ingredients: chopped up meat, red powder into the bowl of the
machine, another turned the handle, and a third, myself, kept an eye on the pipe
where the seemingly endless skin twisted and turned like a live snake as the
filling was rammed into it.
Did
we even wash our hands first? I am quite sure we did not.
Washhand
facilities would have comprised a bucket containing water from a nearby stream,
a bar of soap and a non-too-clean towel, probably an opened-out cotton flour
pack. Where were 'the sanitary officers' as they were called (now Public Health
Inspectors)?
The
background to my story is this. We were 'new fangled' with what was going on. It
had not been long established.
A
neighbor who had been in a management position in a leading town centre grocery
business had been made redundant.
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Unsaleable
Farmers
were fetching cattle home from fairs unsold as they, and other farm produce, had
become almost unsaleable. They had no feeding for the animals and were in dire
straits.
Victuallers
from the town were still hawking their wares locally, but Tommy X saw a chance
to cut out the middlemen and make a few quid.
He
got the use of a disused shed from a neighboring farmer, put in a concrete
floor, a few benches made from disused railway sleepers, a stout metal ring at
floor level far slaughtering purposes, and his premises were ready – no plans,
no license, no nothing, and definitely no humane killer.
Then
he got a fat beast from a farmer who was almost ready to give one away,
persuaded the local pig butcher to slaughter the animal, skin it and carve it
up.
Next,
he got an old banger of a motorcar - a T model Ford, I think, loaded it up and
away he went on his sales trip.
He
got rid of his meat easily, for he was well known and deservedly popular and the
price would have been right.
The
sausage-making machine came at the second phase, and the sight of long skins
twisting and turning on the bench like live things as they were filled,
fascinated us as we peeped in on our way home from school.
The
slaughterhouse was only a quarter of a mile from our place and it was a
closely-knit community. Everyone lived in everyone else's pocket.
Tommy's
venture was community based, and community approved. TB was rife both in the
human population and no doubt in the animal one as well.
Yet
I have no recollection of anyone suffering any ill-effects from consuming
Tommy's meat.
No
doubt the NSPCA and the sanitary people closed him down eventually or maybe the
liquefied
his assets and his cash flow ceased? I don't remember. The date was circa 1927.
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