Tobacco

Blimey, that takes me back.

Back in the day when dinosaurs walked the earth and I had my backside hanging out of my trousers, I would grow my own tobacco and send it off to the Tilty Tobacco Cooperative to be cured. It was run by the splendidly named Revd Hugh Cuthbertson and he was one of God's own awkward squad. Lovely fellow.

Anyway, as John has said, you weren't allowed to sell the tobacco, which was no bad thing because it was something of an acquired taste, but if memory serves me right (which it probably doesn't), you were allowed to grow up to 25 square yards of the stuff, which was something of a bargain because that worked out at about 400 ounces. And 400 ounces would keep you going and carbonise your lungs for a year.

Revd Cuthbertson had an idea that it was not the tobacco so much as the chemicals that the commercial growers sprayed on the plants that caused cancer. I dunno how true that was, but I reckon that anyone who was out in the open and working a patch of ground was probably in better shape than some poor wretch huddled over a desk and living off decaffeinated museli.