Tuesday 21 September 2010

The answer is a lemon

Or an orange. That could be the prize in Skip's contest here. If so, I should warn him that I know how to eat oranges. I learned the trick more than 60 years ago when I was in hospital to have my tonsils removed.

It was just after the second World War (even I'm not old enough to have been around for the first round) and I was, I think, five or so years old. Being a war baby, I had never even seen an orange let alone taste one. I was in a bed next to a slightly older boy and we were the only children in a ward filled with elderly men who seemed to me to be about to leave hospital on their final journeys. Anyway, one of the nurses took pity on us two youngsters and gave us each an orange. The other boy knew what this fruit was and soon showed me how to pierce the skin with my teeth so that I could suck the best tasting nectar I had ever experienced.

The nurse came back later to collect her oranges and was horrified to find all that remained was the skin. They were a special treat for her, probably the first oranges she had seen in years - and we had eaten them! Apparently she had only intended us to play with them as if they were balls.

No comments: