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It was a Saturday evening in early December 1988; I just finished eating a boiled egg which happened to be the last one that I would consume for nearly a year (and even the following Easter, I was rather cautious about the chocolate ones as well). An ITN Bulletin was on the television, and Trevor McDonald was reading the news, a few years before he became a more prominent weekday face courtesy of the 1990s version of News at Ten. All of a sudden, he mentions that the British egg industry could be contained with salmonella - I was silent, and thought about what I had just eaten, although it never did me any harm as far as I could remember, and certainly, I wasn't ill, but going back nearly 37 years to that moment, some things have been almost forgotten about. The then Junior Health Minister, Edwina Currie, who was almost the most senior female cabinet minister after Margaret Thatcher, proclaimed these allegations, and they had impact in British society, a lot more than Currie's affair with John Major released around 15 years later. Cue The Sun and other tabloids with punning headlines such as "Egg-wina", trying to capitialise on "Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster" and "I Quit" just a couple of years before. It made me think whether salmonella was the coronavirus of the 1988-1989 sub-year, and in hindsight, I think that it was. Edwina Currie resigned as Junior Health Minister soon afterwards and was replaced by Kettering MP Roger Freeman. Both Currie and Freeman had lost their Westminster seats at the 1997 General Election.
"I'll never eat another boiled egg again", I vouched after I saw the news bulletin, but certainly the next time I had another one was in around mid-1989, post-Hillsborough, and thinking about Easter the following year, such a time where eggs are prominent, it probably reminded the public as to what eggs were in society; symbols of holidays such as Easter, and a persuasion to start eating them again, although the family still used to buy eggs from Tesco and the local Co-op, indicating that the supermarkets still sold them and that they were unscathed by Currie's observations. Hens were the main organisms facing the death sentence as over four million were slaughtered due to the loss of revenue; in the same statement, widely interpreted as referring to "most eggs produced". It also made me think whether this had any impact on the sales of Easter eggs in shops (Woolworths in particular) in 1989 and the decrease of the rugby ball-shaped chocolate treats. Currie and salmonella alike had developed a mild cultural currency in Great Britain such as jokes being concocted such as "what are the names of Edwina Currie's two goldfish? - Sam and Ella". Boom-tish. But why goldfish instead of eggs, I wonder? The comedian Paul Bradley in 1989 referred to someone in his Granada Television for Children's ITV series Bradley as "being on holiday in Salmonella". I don't think any soap operas had acknowledged salmonella but Granada's other series, Coronation Street in around Christmas 1988, had Alf Roberts being accused of food poisoning in his Corner Shop after getting stomach ache, after being accused of getting it from his own stock, and thus having a glass of water with some Alka Seltzer to calm his stomach down. Roberts insisted that he never sells any out of date food, although Hilda Ogden cleaner successor Sandra Stubbs mentioned that he sold a pate which had gone off. It made me think that the salmonella situation in the news had actually influenced that storyline.
Meanwhile. in the land of the good old Education Reform Act 1988, the kids at school knew that eating eggs was supposed to be healthy for them and had been a great source of energy for growing up. Back then, the kids of my school (we're talking the Fourth Year of the Juniors aka Year Six of school in general) were so up to date with their politics and current affairs (making me wonder whether they read The Times rather than The Beano), that even they were making jokes and honourable mentions of Currie's claim-to-fame. A supply teacher mentioned the salmonella incident, while doing a project about how food, and particularly eggs, are produced, the teacher had gone as far to the art of consuming the zoologic ingredient. And then one lad piped up: "and then you get salmonella and then you die". On another occasion from around the same time, the teacher questioned the absence and probable truancy about one lad in the class. "He's probably nicking eggs off the local market - he'll get salmonella", someone, probably the same person interjected in response. No doubt that many schools during the 1988-1989 academic year was full of classes observant to the salmonella in eggs controversy in the news, and had satirised it so much that Ian Hislop wouldn't know how. It wasn't until 10 years later that I started to read Private Eye.
I believe that the Health and Safety side of things had also extended to other parts of school life, which was also extended from Salmonella-ville; the egg and spoon race (but they did have to be hard-boiled, did they not?), an institution at thousands of traditional sports days for donkeys' years, was probably briefly scrapped or replaced by something else because of "you know what", and that was extended further as a result of schools disallowing used eggboxes to make things as part of Blue Peter-esque collage, art or craft projects, and that was more less in the early 2000s - I certainly read about this in a book about Health and Safety news articles, collected by Alan Pearce. Prior to the Currie incident, I do remember that Peperami (the meaty snack that one eats like a chocolate bar) was involved in a salmonella scare in the mid to late 1980s as well, and that was around the first time that I had ever heard of the word "salmonella". It made me think, "who eats meat as if it was a chocolate bar?" I used to see many empty green Peperami packets on the pavement as I was walking home from school, which must have been just before litterbins were invented as it was back in the mid 1980s.
There is nothing quite like a boiled egg with soldiers (butter and not margarine, please note), and it doesn't matter whether they are toasted or just ordinary bread, tapping the top of the egg lightly around half a dozen times, (but nothing quite like how Black Rod bangs the door to the House of Commons with his mace on the morning of the State Opening of Parliament), with a small spoon, before eating, with the yellow yolk pouring down as the soldiers are dipped in. The eggs are prepared in a pan of boiling water on the cooker top - well, it was like that in the days of my parents' cooking, growing up. And then, after the egg is eaten, we turn the empty eggshell upside down to make it look as if I hadn't even started my boiled egg; a pure April Fools Day joke which kids have been doing all the time ever since eggs had been invented or at least discovered. Brilliant. As far as I am concerned, the salmonella-in-eggs incident has been water-under-the-bridge since the early 1990s at the latest, and I certainly look forward to a a couple of fried eggs as part of my Premier Inn breakfast each year around my birthday. As for salmonella, well, I suppose that the phrase "egg-on-your-face" sounds rather apt.
"I'll never eat another boiled egg again", I vouched after I saw the news bulletin, but certainly the next time I had another one was in around mid-1989, post-Hillsborough, and thinking about Easter the following year, such a time where eggs are prominent, it probably reminded the public as to what eggs were in society; symbols of holidays such as Easter, and a persuasion to start eating them again, although the family still used to buy eggs from Tesco and the local Co-op, indicating that the supermarkets still sold them and that they were unscathed by Currie's observations. Hens were the main organisms facing the death sentence as over four million were slaughtered due to the loss of revenue; in the same statement, widely interpreted as referring to "most eggs produced". It also made me think whether this had any impact on the sales of Easter eggs in shops (Woolworths in particular) in 1989 and the decrease of the rugby ball-shaped chocolate treats. Currie and salmonella alike had developed a mild cultural currency in Great Britain such as jokes being concocted such as "what are the names of Edwina Currie's two goldfish? - Sam and Ella". Boom-tish. But why goldfish instead of eggs, I wonder? The comedian Paul Bradley in 1989 referred to someone in his Granada Television for Children's ITV series Bradley as "being on holiday in Salmonella". I don't think any soap operas had acknowledged salmonella but Granada's other series, Coronation Street in around Christmas 1988, had Alf Roberts being accused of food poisoning in his Corner Shop after getting stomach ache, after being accused of getting it from his own stock, and thus having a glass of water with some Alka Seltzer to calm his stomach down. Roberts insisted that he never sells any out of date food, although Hilda Ogden cleaner successor Sandra Stubbs mentioned that he sold a pate which had gone off. It made me think that the salmonella situation in the news had actually influenced that storyline.
Meanwhile. in the land of the good old Education Reform Act 1988, the kids at school knew that eating eggs was supposed to be healthy for them and had been a great source of energy for growing up. Back then, the kids of my school (we're talking the Fourth Year of the Juniors aka Year Six of school in general) were so up to date with their politics and current affairs (making me wonder whether they read The Times rather than The Beano), that even they were making jokes and honourable mentions of Currie's claim-to-fame. A supply teacher mentioned the salmonella incident, while doing a project about how food, and particularly eggs, are produced, the teacher had gone as far to the art of consuming the zoologic ingredient. And then one lad piped up: "and then you get salmonella and then you die". On another occasion from around the same time, the teacher questioned the absence and probable truancy about one lad in the class. "He's probably nicking eggs off the local market - he'll get salmonella", someone, probably the same person interjected in response. No doubt that many schools during the 1988-1989 academic year was full of classes observant to the salmonella in eggs controversy in the news, and had satirised it so much that Ian Hislop wouldn't know how. It wasn't until 10 years later that I started to read Private Eye.
I believe that the Health and Safety side of things had also extended to other parts of school life, which was also extended from Salmonella-ville; the egg and spoon race (but they did have to be hard-boiled, did they not?), an institution at thousands of traditional sports days for donkeys' years, was probably briefly scrapped or replaced by something else because of "you know what", and that was extended further as a result of schools disallowing used eggboxes to make things as part of Blue Peter-esque collage, art or craft projects, and that was more less in the early 2000s - I certainly read about this in a book about Health and Safety news articles, collected by Alan Pearce. Prior to the Currie incident, I do remember that Peperami (the meaty snack that one eats like a chocolate bar) was involved in a salmonella scare in the mid to late 1980s as well, and that was around the first time that I had ever heard of the word "salmonella". It made me think, "who eats meat as if it was a chocolate bar?" I used to see many empty green Peperami packets on the pavement as I was walking home from school, which must have been just before litterbins were invented as it was back in the mid 1980s.
There is nothing quite like a boiled egg with soldiers (butter and not margarine, please note), and it doesn't matter whether they are toasted or just ordinary bread, tapping the top of the egg lightly around half a dozen times, (but nothing quite like how Black Rod bangs the door to the House of Commons with his mace on the morning of the State Opening of Parliament), with a small spoon, before eating, with the yellow yolk pouring down as the soldiers are dipped in. The eggs are prepared in a pan of boiling water on the cooker top - well, it was like that in the days of my parents' cooking, growing up. And then, after the egg is eaten, we turn the empty eggshell upside down to make it look as if I hadn't even started my boiled egg; a pure April Fools Day joke which kids have been doing all the time ever since eggs had been invented or at least discovered. Brilliant. As far as I am concerned, the salmonella-in-eggs incident has been water-under-the-bridge since the early 1990s at the latest, and I certainly look forward to a a couple of fried eggs as part of my Premier Inn breakfast each year around my birthday. As for salmonella, well, I suppose that the phrase "egg-on-your-face" sounds rather apt.
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