Saturday 30 March 2013

A life in letters: Whities



‘Would you like a whitie?’ my father would say, with no racist connotations whatsoever, if we were going out on a cold night.
From time to time when I was a young child he would buy small, white, extremely strong peppermints which were scooped from a jar by the shopkeeper, and poured into a white paper bag. These he called ‘whities’ and he regarded them as having a close to medicinal efficacy, administering one to protect his throat when he was venturing out in winter.

I suspect he dipped into the white bag, which he kept in his coat pocket all mixed up with his gloves, relatively infrequently, because it would be crinkled and grey long before the last mint was extracted. My father was not, clearly, a serial peppermint addict.
You’d say ‘Yes please!’, and he’d give you one of these treasures, and you’d go out with him into the darkness. You’d watch his Adam’s apple disappear beneath the dark green scarf as he ensured his neck was fully covered, and pressed his lips together to exclude the cold, than then you’d set out,  holding his hand, each of you breathing into the night air a peppermint-scented mist.

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