Further thoughts on the impact of Amnesia on Alcoholism
The current highlight of a gloomier than normal January has been an invitation to an al fresco lunch at Pears Tennis Club, in Highgate, so called because it occupies a strip of land that, up until 1920, was a commercial orchard.
My host was Janice Chesher, who is a legacy member of the club; one of her distant ancestors having played a role in its foundation. Tennis aficionados will perhaps remember Janice as the woman who received a lifetime ban from Wimbledon for throwing a strawberry at Nick Kyrgios. There exists unflattering footage of her drunkenly protesting, “If he isn't going to take the game seriously, then I'm not going to take him seriously,” as she is escorted from the stands by a trio of police officers.
A more sympathetic explanation for her outburst than the one provided by the papers (where she was described as “demented”), is that she was, in her own way, attempting to come to terms with the unexpected death of her husband, Vincent Gifford. Vincent, who was an old school friend of mine, grew up to be a firefighter; an incredibly brave and utterly unflappable character. He perished in the Shorland Refinery blaze, along two other members of his crew.
Janice and I hadn't met, or even conversed, in over two years, on account of COVID restrictions, of which she is vocally critical. Her objections were, I think, the reason why we were dining more or less alone on an enclosed patio outside, in the wan glow of a solar heater labouring away under overcast conditions. I remained unconvinced by her insistence that she had forgone the main dining room by choice, because she thought that it would do us both good to be out in the fresh air.
Janice is a rather forthright character. She has a very bossy and abrupt air about her, that I enjoy in small doses. I can't imagine what it would be like to be married to her. However, for a few hours, I am happy to defer to her temperament and allow her to run the small part of the world in her vicinity as she pleases. I will admit that it is amusing to see her cut off people in mid-sentence before they can object to her requests, and then watch them sheepishly, and usually somewhat resentfully, go about following her instructions to the letter.
On this occasion, I found her oddly deflated; far quieter and less demanding than normals, for reasons she never explained, and would have never told me, even if I had asked.
She had mentioned in passing that her stepson, Jason, was doing “dry January”. To fill an ensuing lull in the conversation I related to her the story of the April Nymph – a steam locomotive that was accidentally deluged in an anti-rust compound that reacted with the bodywork of the engine. creating lingering fumes that caused its drivers to suffer bouts of temporary amnesia. A longer lasting side-effect was an apparent lifelong aversion to alcohol that was notable, since two of the men who were initially affected had been dedicated drinkers. The April Nymph was decommissioned after it was concluded that the chemicals could not be removed and the train could not be driven safely without causing harm to its crew. The engine derailed while en-route to the siding where it was to be quarantined, ending up embedded in the soft loam of a drained peat bog where it has remained ever since. The accident was written up as the result of chemical fumes impacting negatively upon the judgement of the driver, underscored by poor maintenance of the locomotive, which had been neglected on the grounds of health and safety. There are some who believe that the derailment was intentional and was an attempt by its owners to unburden themselves of the arduous task of deconstructing the Nymph and disposing of the component parts.
During my anecdote, I took some pleasure in observing Janice's natural inclination to brazenly interrupt, wrestling with the etiquette that was drilled into her by the nuns at Catholic school. By the time I had concluded my story, she seemed about to burst.
“That oily ruin! I know it!,” she exclaimed. “There's an Eddie Adams fitness centre on the reclaimed land right next to it. When it's cold, the metal structure makes a sound like gunshots. I lost a game there once because I was distracted by it.”
I happened to have with me, in my satchel, a vintage picture postcard, in a cardboard frame, that had been issued in the 1940s by The Ladies Alliance vs the consumption of all Beers, Wines, & Spirits. I had been carrying it around with me for months. It was a reproduction of a simple painting, typical of the era, depicting a group of smiling men and women holding hands around a depiction of the April Nymph in its chemical-splashed maroon livery, billowing a cloud of steam. At the bottom of the card, a slogan in a wayward cream font, edged with blue, invited the recipient to 'Come taste the fresh air of temperance.'
“They believed the chemical fumes from the engine could cure alcoholism,” I explained. “They attempted to purchase the engine after it was decommissioned. They planned to take it on a tour of the rail network but were outbid by a consortium of publicans and alcohol producers, who feared the damage that it might do to their businesses. They arranged for it to be broken up instead and the parts melted down.”
I slid the card across the table toward Janice.
“I bought it in August in that second-hand bookshop in Dartmouth – the one with the yellow cellophane on the windows.”
Janice picked up the card and perused it.
“Well the wreck is practically alongside the bar at Eddie Adams' and it's had no noticeable impact on the drinking that goes on there,” she scoffed, as a pair of women breezed past in their tennis whites.
“That's Hazel Black,” remarked Janice, when they were out of earshot. “She's captain of the over-40s women's team. I'd like to take some of the pepper out of her game, but she keeps coming up with excuses not to play me.”
The waiter appeared at the table with a credit card reader. Janice graciously settled the eye-watering bill. After the man was gone, she slipped the receipt into her handbag along with the postcard. I don't know whether she assumed that it was a gift, or had simply taken it either because she wanted it, or because she regarded it as payment for my share of the meal. I was somewhat aggrieved as it had cost me £15 (despite being marked as £12 in pencil on the back). I felt I had been taken advantage of twice.
Fox broth
The other night, for no particular reason, I was suddenly reminded of Solomon Fox, who I have not seen in the flesh in many years. I harbour a vague recollection of somebody telling me he had emigrated to Kenya. It seemed unlikely. Mention of him online, where he appeared to be resident in Hastings, on the south-east coast of England, is only slightly more plausible. He would be in his early 70s now. It is possible that he is dead. My final communication with him was by email in 2001.
Solomon was born in Nairobi. He came into this world addicted to alcohol but had the fortune to be raised by an order of Catholic nuns, named The Sisterhood of Forbearance who often adopted the children of parents who were unsuccessfully struggling with addiction. It was through the Sisterhood that Solomon was brought to England at the age of 3. He remained a trouble child and ran away from the orphanage when he was 11. He spent his teenage years living in squats, at first in Manchester, and then in London, drinking “whatever I could lay my hands on.”
Circumstances changed for Solomon in 1979 after he snuck into The Glastonbury Festival. In one of the outlying fields “so far away, you could barely hear the music,” he was introduced to his namesake - the fox's paw mushroom, so-called on account of its gnarled shape and the manner in which it fruits, in winding trails. An old hippie who had noticed the tell-tale signs of alcohol withdrawal fed him a thick mushroom stew, telling him that it would “take the edge off for a while.” As Solomon told it, the man provided him with instructions on how to cultivate the mushroom and how to best prepare it, before rising to his feet and walking away into the countryside, leaving behind his meagre belongings.
“I swear that's what happened,” he insisted, when I expressed incredulity. “I've still got all his stuff. I wish I could shake his hand and thank him because he changed my life overnight. I was living in a damp basement flat in Limehouse. It was so close to the Thames. you had the river coming in through the walls in vapours. Ironically it was ideal conditions for growing fox's paw. The effects, when you take it, last three days. During that time your body forgets that it wants alcohol. On the first day, you feel nauseous. The second day is better. On the third day, your mind begins to clear and it feels like you might be on the cusp of a breakthrough. Then it starts to fall away and the old impulses towards drinking begin to resurface. But it will keep you off the hard stuff if you take it on a regular schedule.
In 1981, Solomon set up an informal treatment facility/halfway house for alcoholics in Mile End, where he was successful in using fox's paw to wean hardened drinkers off the bottle.
In 1993, a broad stroke of legislation reclassified fox's paw, along with a number of other natural remedies, as a B-class narcotic, making possession and distribution of the fungus an offence, punishable by jail in some instances. Solomon attempted to work around the new law by seeding “fox groves” across London and providing the locations to his clients. These secret plantations did not remain secret for very long. Their former whereabouts became identifiable by the trails of dead vegetation caused by the liberal application of weed-killer. Solomon concluded that he was being targeted, and that it was likely that one of the people under his care was working as a police informant.
The last time that we met in person was in the Summer of 1998, when we bumped into each other by accident at Camden Market. Solomon was drinking again, though not as heavily as before. He was sometimes able to lay a hand upon small quantities of fox's paw and this had prevented a full relapse.
It was through Solomon that I met, and briefly dated, Rose Peppard whose father, Ron, benefited from treatment at the halfway house at Mile End. After fox's paw was banned, he lost the motivation to seek it out for himself. He died of liver failure two years later.
Rose was grateful for the time that she spent with him, while he was sober.
“I missed out on having him around as a father when I was growing up, but I had five good years with him as an adult,” she reminisced. “A light came into his life and I caught a glimpse of what could have been.”
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