The Genuine Article

Sept 3 2011

The wound was to be bathed in Epsom salts

twice daily.

A coarse white crystal,

that would turn up its nose

with a disdainful sniff

at simple table salt.

I picture a quaint coastal village

where there was once a primordial sea,

and proper English gentlemen

grudgingly raking the beach.

Leaning on long-handled shovels

taking tea,

ruddy, puffing, flushed

stiff collars undone.

So I looked it up.

And found the dictionary proclaims

the precise date the name appeared.

1848.

So while forward-thinking Victorians

soothed their well earned soreness

in  mineral baths, and steaming warmth,

sought invigorating health

through ice-water, and self-denial,

Europe burned.

A continent convulsed

in bloody revolution,

while plucky Englishmen

measured healing salts

in serial dilutions.

And what could be more English

than “Epsom”?

Like Sandwich, Dover, Bath

it sounds pale, placid

bland.

They are all cucumber, thinly sliced

on buttered white bread

with the crust cut off.

Exactly what you’d expect

from a land of shopkeepers, clock-watchers

the petty bourgeois.

Who were once the unlikely rulers

of the civilized world.

So I imagine all the emollients

bearing this name

must come from Epsom.

I assume the only place on earth

where magnesium sulphate heptahydrate

naturally occurs.

They own the brand, have cornered the market,

which means every bag of Epsom salts

is the genuine article.

So let us give thanks

to the delights of Epsom,

and the healing power

of baths.

1848 was a seminal year in European history. So when I idly looked up “Epsom”, and saw this iconic date, it jumped off the page. I was immediately struck – and utterly delighted – by the contrast:   on the one hand, hot-headed revolutionaries and anarchists; and on the other, proper, optimistic, petty bourgeois Victorian Englishmen.

A shameless and ridiculously inaccurate stereotype, I know. But irresistible, nevertheless!