Free Tears for a Tinker by Jess Smith Page B

would disappear. Within six months I would
see quite a visible difference. Aye, right!
    What did greedy me do? Well, these tasty treats went down no bother with a cup of tea. Then, after a plate of my favourite stew and tatties, I enjoyed one as a pudding. Also, I’d better
confess to you about something else. There was a chippy down a flight of stone stairs at the rear of our house, and if one bought anything after ten o’ clock at night they got it half price.
You must know by now I’m not one to snub a bargain, and my favourite was a ‘polony supper’. Yes, I know, I know.
    Another stone later, I was so depressed I could hardly put a foot over the door. My wee boys also were suffering, not getting the fresh air growing children need. Davie still never complained,
not even when he came home one day after three weeks at sea and I threw myself into his open arms. The result was, he spent four days in bed with a strained back and sported a thick lip after
coming in contact with my podgy nose. Ochone, ochone, what a mess I was in; totally out of control.
    As I rolled from my bed one morning, I suddenly had a clear idea what to do. A visit and a chat with nice Doctor Mackenzie was what I needed. If anybody could help, it was him. Blood tests were
taken, my weight properly monitored, and he prescribed for me a diet that would guide me back from the abyss. Did it heck! Along with watery chicken soup and butterless toast, I was still downing
the slimming treats and going out to get late night polony suppers. I was a lost cause, with a mouth sucking in every morsel.
    My young sisters gave me makeovers and hair-dos, but nothing could disguise the four chins all fighting for space somewhere in the region where I knew there was a neck. The only way to find my
waistline was by running a finger inside my knickers and feeling for the elastic. Those were a laugh, those knickers. Mammy bought me some—yes, from the Co-op again; they were designed for
elderly ladies who had ‘difficulties’. I don’t know what kind of problems these were meant to be, but if the Boy Scout movement had needed extra tents, then a visit to the Co-op
for these knickers would have met their needs. Constant headaches were also plaguing me.
    I went back to the doctor for the blood results. ‘What are you eating?’ he asked, with friendly concern.
    ‘Along with your food stuff I’ve been eating biscuits, slimming ones.’
    He was horrified on discovering the amount of them I was eating, and told me not to take any more.
    ‘They are full of caffeine, Jessie, that would explain the headaches. Don’t eat anything after six in the evening and forget the chippy suppers. I saw you one night popping out of
the chippy with a great bundle under your arm, but you must stop them!
    I blushed red with guilt, knowing that Doctor Mackenzie had seen me sneaking about with yesterday’s newspaper disguising comfort food.
    I did lose weight but not in the way I’d planned.
    It began with a headache, then a fever, then a horrendous bout of Asian flu. Up and down the country folks were dropping like flies. It was a merciless epidemic, and death followed like a
flooded burn in its wake. Seven days I lay in bed, unable to keep a morsel of food down. Nightmares of drowning in giant middens of polony suppers provided hallucinations galore. Doctor Mackenzie
and his team worked round the clock. The poor creatures were exhausted, working flat out tending flu-ridden Macduff, Banff and all the wee coastal villages scattered along the Moray coast. The
local newspaper made depressing reading; it was terrible to see how many entries there were in the death columns.
    I had youth on my side, however, and was soon back on my feet. It was a delight to see how much fat had turned to sweat and drenched itself into my bedclothes, I was two stones lighter, and
liked what looked back at me from the mirror. So when I was fully recovered, I started on the odd day omitting