In my last week at high school the deputy headmaster, Mr Fearnley I think, did a morning assembly on the dangers of peanuts.
A former pupil of our illustrious educational establishment (Parkside High School for Boys, a notoriously rough school) had apparently chosen to celebrate his graduation with a catering sized bag of salted nuts washed down with a large bottle of American Cream Soda.
“He was found the following day,” Mr Fearnley intoned, fixing us boys with a look that he’d perfected in the RAF when he’d served his country by giving pep talks to pilots before they got the call to scramble; “found by the police curled up under a park bench clutching the cream soda to his breast… stone cold dead.
He let those last three words hang in the shimmering air of the sunlit school hall.
“Peanuts” he whispered, as if addressing each one of us individually, “a whole bag. Half a pound of peanuts in one sitting is enough to kill any young man. I hope none of the young men I see before me will be so foolish in the next few days.”
He removed his glasses and surveyed the assembled year five.
“Moderation,” he murmured, “keep that in mind, always. Remember, it was only peanuts, but it was too many…”
“It was only peanuts” is probably the most sensible thing I learned in school. And although we laughed and joked as we guzzled Tizer and crammed crisps in our mouths to celebrate leaving compulsory education all the boys in my year exhibited a respect for the dangers implicit in the most innocuous looking snack foods.
They were sensible days back then. The teachers treated us as adults-in-the-making, not as children in need of protection and fussing over. No peanut was ever confiscated as far as I can remember. No snack was ever banned. And if some foolish lad over-indulged and choked on his Cheesy Wotsits the local newspaper didn’t send a reporter to interview the daft kid how it felt or quote the school newsletter about the dangers of unrestricted confectionery products.
Things are different now, as this headline in the Yorkshire Post suggests.
It’s a story about a young girl (14) who had a bit of a bad turn after eating a lot of very hot tortilla chips while playing a very silly game with her brother. She drank a lot of milk and ran to the bathroom, feeling “like I was going to die”. She apparently suffered an asthma attack at school “a week later”. The school reacted quickly, and issued a warning about potentially “distressing” Doritos. A spokesperson for Doritos apologised for having clearly labelled the product “Ultra-spicy”; “one chip in every handful is so spicy it may bring you to tears”.
This story reduced me to tears. Tears of laughter. What the heck are we doing taking this nonsense seriously?