When I was a boy you were either thin or fat. In fact, I was not just thin, but skinny, so skinny that my nickname at school was Belson Bill. It was 1945 and the Nazi concentration camps were being liberated with photographs in the newspapers and on the cinema newsreels showing painfully thin men whose ribs showed through their skin - just like mine. My Dad said that you could play a tune on my ribs. In case you are wondering, we did not have TV in those days and there were no pictures on the wireless and radio had not been invented.
We did not have satchels to take our homework to school as it was wartime, so my Dad made me a suitcase. He used timber from the base of tobacco barrels - he worked in a cigarette factory in the East End and used to bring home this timber to make all sort of things for the home. The suitcase was heavy when empty, but when full it was lethal if swung at someone who called me Belson Bill! Many a shin suffered at my hands.
There were not many fat boys about in the 1940s, so that the one boy I did know who was fat stands out in my memory for we called him - you've guessed! - Fatty! Thinness was the rule for food was on ration and sweets did not come off ration till the early 1950s.
Why, you may well ask, am I telling you this Cedric? And you, too, Doris?. Yesterday I journeyed to Romford. I like markets and whilst Romford's market is not what it used to be, it is still fun. The Lady on the nut stall is always pleasant, asking after my grandsons, who went there with Yvonne. Her fresh salted peanuts are the best in town and I buy her chocolate almonds for my daughter.
As I wandered aimlessly about the market, I could not help but notice how many folk did not just walk but waddled for they were very clearly badly overweight. In my day we would have said that they were fat, but today the word is obese.
It upset me to see both adults and children who were fat - sorry, obese - waddling around the market, eating fast food and dropping the wrappers as they waddled. At the fruit stall stood thin men and women - and that says something.
I will refrain from writing more on this subject, except to say that it made me feel right unwell at the thought of how they will cope when they are eighty-five and have to do the shopping?
