‘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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