Ah well, as this topic is all about digressions, I will digress even further and give you a sample of Potted Nanny (Meat Paste) and false teeth, courtesy of Wilf Lunn.
In the old days ..... Dad reckoned that he couldn't eat tomatoes because the skins stuck in his false teeth. He wouldn't eat them peeled because he said the seeds sprouted and grew in your belly. Corned beef was banned because he thought it was horsemeat and he knew it was dangerous. This, I think, came from the story of a butcher carrying a case of corned beef tins. He dropped the case on the table unfortunately his testicles were resting on the table at the time. It was said his scream was heard all over Brighouse. Maybe it's a folk tale but this story had been drastically summarised to 'corned beef is dangerous'. This coupled with the war time rumour that it was horsemeat meant corned beef was not for Dad. He had no problem with what was called, "Potted Nanny". I was suspicious of it. Why nanny? Cannibalism was common in children's stories then, for example, 'Hansel and Gretel', mainly, it must be said, with children being eaten, not old ladies reduced to meat paste.
Nowadays it seems like a good idea with the surfeit of old ladies you see on the buses.
Then, I thought it was goat meat, that is, nanny goat meat. If so, why wasn't there any, "Potted Billy?" I'd never seen a goat but they must have been about because Dad insisted pasteurised milk was goat's milk. Being from the country, he knew nothing tasting like that came out of a cow.
The only other milk he knew of came from goats, so he reasoned it must be goat's milk. So was the paste nanny goat meat? No, it turned out it was simple beef paste.
Why they all called it "Potted Nanny", I never found out. Chicken paste was not available then. I always tell the kids chicken paste is the stuff just under the chicken's skin that holds the feathers on.
Dad's false teeth were the colour of ancient ivory. They were that yellow brown tinge that they now paint on pub ceilings. They have to do this because we're not smoking enough to get the mucky look a theme pub trying to look like a real old pub should have.
One woman we knew had a top set of teeth so slackly fitted that they didn't keep up with her talking. The teeth would stay shut when she opened her mouth, or, if the teeth opened when she opened her mouth, they would shut before she shut her mouth. It was fascinating to watch her talk. She thought we were really interested in what she was saying. She didn't realise we were mesmerised by her teeth; they seemed to have a mind of their own. We didn't see this effect again till years later in badly dubbed Italian films. Her voice was out of synchronisation with her teeth. If you've seen the creature's teeth in the film, 'Alien', it was a bit like that ... without the drool.
With all these false teeth about, some men had to stop smoking pipes and change to smoking cigarettes. You see, with false teeth you couldn't hold a pipe in your mouth. If you let go, the weight of the bowl acted like a lever and flicked your top set of teeth out of your mouth. Resulting in a loss of cool. Hardened pipe men would hold the bowl at all times and do a lot of pointing with the stem of the pipe whilst talking with their, hopefully, synchronised false teeth.
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