A Sheffield History site refers to a "curious theory expressed by experts when in February 1912 Sheffield, Derby and Leicester were afflicted by a scourge of typhoid." These experts concluded that the typhoid fever was caused by the mussels that were being eaten by the hundred in the happy homes of these towns. The mussels in question came from the estuaries of the Teign and the Exe.
It is an alarming thought that mussel fanciers, men women and children, were retching and suffering and no doubt dying because they had eaten mussels gathered on the Exe.
By 17th February the matter had come to the attention of the General Purposes Committee of Devon County Council and Lympstone had been pinpointed as the main offender. Under the heading: EXE SHELLFISH CONDEMNED, the Exeter Flying Post reported that:
"As a result of complaints from Derby of typhoid supposed to be due to mussels collected at Lympstone, Dr Adkins has reported... that the mussels and the river water contain large quantities of the micro organisms found in sewage."
It seems odd though that there was no typhoid in Lympstone at a time where every second family had mussels for tea and often for breakfast as well. I wonder if the supposed connection between mussels and typhoid was ever proved. The typhoid in distant Derby was to have dire consequences for the fisherfolk of this village.
Showing posts with label mussels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mussels. Show all posts
Friday, 19 November 2010
Thursday, 3 September 2009
A MINOR INDUSTRY
“What are those ragged creature going out on the mud for?”
“After mussels and cockles,” says pretty Milly Batstone….
“What they call a minor industry , ” says Arthur, her wimpish, grocer boyfriend visiting from the city of Exeter who just doesn’t get it. “I suppose only the lowest of the low do such messy work; and only the lowest type of people eat them anyway.”
“Your quite wrong there,” answers his sweetheart, Milly. “There’s nothing messy about it. Our mud’s clean—very different from Exeter mud.”
This messy or not so messy, minor industry of the harvesting of shellfish is lovingly described in Eden Phillpotts’ 1922 novel, Redcliff. Later in his story Miss Jane Shears, feisty cockle gatherer extraordinary, puts the unloveable Arthur right:
“You speak out of your Exeter ignorance; but cockles is our bread and cheese here, just like tying up parcels of bread and cheese for other people to eat is your bread and cheese……All our women – even our sempstresses and such like- go down to the tide off and on, to earn a bit of the cash God puts in the mud. Cockles be the sugar in our tea and the butter on our bread, my dear man.”
Tide after tide the cockles and mussels were raked out of the mud by the women and children of Lympstone village and the mussels were taken by the basketful to be cleansed at the local cleansing tanks before being sent off by rail to the mussel-eating factory workers of the Midlands. The story I have heard is that the cleansing tanks at Sowden End were a consequence of the unregulated years which came to an end when shellfish from the Estuary poisoned a couple of streets of some Midland town or other. I would like to know if anyone else knows more of this story. In any case the cleansing project failed finally because it became too expensive for the local shellfish gatherers to use the tanks and in the 1930s the shellfish industry collapsed.
In the sixties and early seventies it was still possible to spend a happy day on the banks and to bring home many buckets full of cockles. My father and my mother regularly went a cockling, mostly not in the mud but on the Cockle Sand and their only bathtub was often full of cockles bubbling away cleansing themselves in brine. They supplemented their fried breakfasts with them, crisping them in butter. Delicious!
Tomorrow: an introduction to my Poppy entitled A Boat for the Estuary.
.
“After mussels and cockles,” says pretty Milly Batstone….
“What they call a minor industry , ” says Arthur, her wimpish, grocer boyfriend visiting from the city of Exeter who just doesn’t get it. “I suppose only the lowest of the low do such messy work; and only the lowest type of people eat them anyway.”
“Your quite wrong there,” answers his sweetheart, Milly. “There’s nothing messy about it. Our mud’s clean—very different from Exeter mud.”
This messy or not so messy, minor industry of the harvesting of shellfish is lovingly described in Eden Phillpotts’ 1922 novel, Redcliff. Later in his story Miss Jane Shears, feisty cockle gatherer extraordinary, puts the unloveable Arthur right:
“You speak out of your Exeter ignorance; but cockles is our bread and cheese here, just like tying up parcels of bread and cheese for other people to eat is your bread and cheese……All our women – even our sempstresses and such like- go down to the tide off and on, to earn a bit of the cash God puts in the mud. Cockles be the sugar in our tea and the butter on our bread, my dear man.”
Tide after tide the cockles and mussels were raked out of the mud by the women and children of Lympstone village and the mussels were taken by the basketful to be cleansed at the local cleansing tanks before being sent off by rail to the mussel-eating factory workers of the Midlands. The story I have heard is that the cleansing tanks at Sowden End were a consequence of the unregulated years which came to an end when shellfish from the Estuary poisoned a couple of streets of some Midland town or other. I would like to know if anyone else knows more of this story. In any case the cleansing project failed finally because it became too expensive for the local shellfish gatherers to use the tanks and in the 1930s the shellfish industry collapsed.
In the sixties and early seventies it was still possible to spend a happy day on the banks and to bring home many buckets full of cockles. My father and my mother regularly went a cockling, mostly not in the mud but on the Cockle Sand and their only bathtub was often full of cockles bubbling away cleansing themselves in brine. They supplemented their fried breakfasts with them, crisping them in butter. Delicious!
Tomorrow: an introduction to my Poppy entitled A Boat for the Estuary.
.
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