Jean's Journal: Some thoughts

by Jean Farrell

My column today is about a mixture of things. I take notes regularly of interesting facts and thoughts. Here are some.

Maeve Binchy wrote, ‘Weight, sadly, is of no help, unless you are a Sumo wrestler.’ True!

I read that, “A good handshake tells a story.” Some people set great store by a handshake. In fact, I know one man who writes off a person immediately if they have a limp lifeless handshake!

Do you know that most accidents happen within a mile of home, on local roads? I was very surprised to read this. I wrongly assumed that accidents always happen on busy motorways, with people driving much too fast.

For instance, if I had to drive to Woodies, I would always have considered that going there through town was much safer than driving on the dual-carriageway. Apparently, this is not so, at all!

Now onto a kind of delicate subject. I have comments to share about toilet issues!

I read an account about all the germs that are on the floor of a public toilet. A lot of these germs are carried in on shoes. You don’t need me to explain where the other germs come from! Most are invisible.

The writer wrote that many of us women leaves our handbags down on the floor of these toilets. We then come home and leave the same bag down on our kitchen worktop. Germs galore are spread by doing so. The article was pointing out the importance of having a hook on the back of the doors of toilets. This is so important.

Ever since I read that article I have been observing that many toilets do not have any hook on the back of their doors.

Staying on the same subject, have you come across these useless toilet-paper dispensers? We are supposed to pull the paper out through a hole in the centre. However, on many occasions, this is impossible to do because the paper is stuck and won’t come out. These dispensers are very frustrating indeed!

More on the same subject! In 1946 a seamstress, called Marion Donovan, was exhausted from trying to dry cloth nappies, babies clothes and cot sheets. They hung all around her, in her small kitchen. She thought of the shower curtain and came up with a plan. Cutting it up, she made small plastic pants from it. She sewed fasteners into them, instead of pins.

Marion discovered that these worked very well. They stopped all the baby’s clothes from getting wet. She approached manufacturers with the idea. The manufacturers told her that these were quite unnecessary. They told her that women had managed for centuries without them. So, the brave Marion took her idea straight to Saks on Fifth Avenue. Within weeks her plastic pants had sold out.

I’m quoting from the article now. “When she sold her patent in 1951 for $1 million, she didn’t stop. She envisioned a disposable diaper, so that no one would ever again trade hours of love for hours of washing. Her disposable design was dismissed as impractical. Yet a decade later, Pampers proved her right.”

The article continued, “Marion passed away in 2014 at ninety-two, leaving behind a legacy that touched every nursery, every family, every life made easier by her courage to ask ‘Why must it be this way?’ Inventions, she proved, aren’t about geniuses in a lab. Sometimes it’s a mother, a needle, and a question that refuses to stay quiet.”

I was very interested in this article because I remember well the days before the invention of disposable nappies. As a young girl, I changed numerous napkins on my many little brothers and sister. The napkins were big and there was a skill in folding them. They were fastened with two big pins. I clearly remember that plastic pants were only put on, over the napkin, if the baby was being wheeled out town, in the pram.

Otherwise, wise women had the solution to the problem of how to cope with a saturated napkin. An oil cloth was put on top of the mattress, in the cot and pram. Two newspapers, folded, were put in then. A clean under-sheet was laid on top. All the urine in the napkin, was soaked up by the newspapers.

When I, as a ten-year-old, lifted the baby out of the cot in the morning, the napkin would be almost completely dry. Not so, the newspapers beneath. These were immediately binned.

I know exactly when disposable nappies became the norm. They were not on sale when my first baby was born, in 1977. By the time my third child was born, in 1981, disposable nappies were in the shops.

These disposable nappies work on the same principle as the newspaper drawing the urine away from the baby’s bottom.

Change of subject now!! Won’t it be interesting to view the 1926 census? We can do so from next April on. I read that there are over 1,000 folk in Ireland aged over 100 today. They will see their names on this census. I marvel at Mary Berry, now aged 90, still baking on our televisions.

Prunella Scales (Mrs Fawlty) passed away lately, aged 93. Sadly, this marvellous actress had dementia. When we were young, a person with this condition was described as ‘doddery!’

A friend’s granny immediately comes to mind! We all loved her. This granny decided that she was in love with Charles Mitchel. Every night, just before he appeared on The News, granny put on her battle-red lipstick and brushed her hair. She was certain sure that Charles could see her!

jeanfarrell@live.ie