PERSPECTIVE UKNORTH
People and their profiles: dukes, archbishops, actors, writers, monks, oddbods, the garish, the gregarious - here they are in single file, chosen by chance, by inclination, or by necessity ... and all reflecting, one hopes, the essential, but indefinable, spark that makes one human being interesting to many. Geoffrey Mather
A virus sweeps across China, and it occurred to me that, in the past, Lancashire would have noted the possibility of its arriving and taken a pinch of snuff. When mill chimneys sprouted like wheat in a field, snuff was the answer to colds, depression, and the hazards of life in general. Mill overlookers, or tacklers, were particularly addicted to it. And the producers of much of it - Illingworth's of Kendal - were regarded with particular affection.
Wherever a pinch of snuff was taken, the name of Dr John Rumney - dead for more than a century - was remembered.
There was - possibly still is for all I know - Dr Rumney's mentholyptus and Dr Rumney's Export and Dr
Rumney•s Plus and you would swear the old gent was still lurking about in the back room with his essences and tobacco dust intent on providing the world with the clearest of clear heads.
In 1984, Illingworth's of Kendal was bought by Imperial Tobacco for £3.3m in a deal which also involved a linked German snuff business. So I duly made the pilgrimage to the legendary place. Illingworth's, I discovered, was a place with people within it who claimed never to have colds. The whole atmosphere was a huge pinch of snuff. It reeked of it and was a bit like Dr Rumney - venerable. Rumney was grandfather of the firm's founder. He had the stocky, stolid look of a Churchill with a fuzz of white hair halo-ing both head and cheeks.
His memory was constantly marked by a sneeze. Not that a snuff-taker should sneeze, since that would indicate too much enthusiasm in the sniff. A gentle sniff is required so that the ground tobacco releases its essence to clear the head while tiny blood vessels in the lower nose absorb the nicotine. Rumney, an enthusaistic snuff-taker himself, probably did it properly.
That is - 'He took the box in his right hand, passed it to his left, rapped it, opened it, presented it to the company, received it after the round, gathered it up in the box by striking the side with middle and forefinger, took a pinch with the right hand, kept the snuff a moment or two between the fingers before carrying it to the nose, sniffed with precision employing both nostrils, but without grimace, and closed the box with a flourish.
Illingworth's, established in 1867, was one of only five grinding and manufacturing companies left - three in Kendal, two in Sheffield. Kendal's three all stemmed from Samuel Gawith. Sheffield's two from the family Wilson. So it was a closed and intimate affair where people mixed pure oils from plants and with secret alchemy produced such things as Cock o• North, Dark Princes, French Carotte, Irish K, Jockey Club, Morton's Mixture, Plain Black and Black Rappee. An honourable trade, not like today. No spying. No moles. "Here," said Chris Musson, general manager at the time of my visit, "we have great respect for each other. If one of our people went to another company and said, 'Would you like to buy a formula?' I would like to think the answer would be, 'Get out.'"In 1983, Illingworth's caught fire and everything was destroyed. First to offer help were the other companies. Within four weeks they were manufacturing on a new trading estate.
Snuff is, of course, tobacco dust and those who are dustiest like it: miners, the old textile workers, lorry drivers.In the South, they liked menthol and theirs was the strongest. In Birmingham and the Mlidlands they took Super Menthol, which is mild. Coalminers liked an aniseed menthol. Scots preferred peppermint.
Tobacco has been in retreat for years. But there will always be people around who sniff a little and often. "We have a lady in Kendal who is 100 and she puts it down to a pinch of snuff a day, "said Chris Musson.
Dr Rumney would have been proud of her.
Geoffrey Mather © 2004
3 March, 2007