POSTING #78

1960s Do-It-Yourself--- English Style

We recently met a couple who are in the process of creating a rural 'off-the-grid' home near Collingwood. Using technologies such as passive and active solar power and high efficiency wood stoves, they are trying to become energy self-sufficient. If successful they won't have to worry about power outages caused by ice storms, overloaded circuits, terrorist attacks, or whatever.

Their story reminded me of some much less ambitious efforts I made in the 1960s to replace purchased items with home-produced things.

We were living in Britain for the first half of the 1960s and there was a minor resurgence of the early 1900s Arts and Crafts movement, as some people turned their backs on commercial products in favour of home-produced goods.

I made yoghurt, pickles, wine and beer and convinced myself that they tasted better and had more goodness than the standardized, 'homogenized' items one found in the stores.

And there was a feeling of satisfaction when one replaced something from a factory with something from the home.

So when a Canadian friend living in London came to me and said he had a new idea for a do-it-yourself product, I listened to him.

He said we should try making our own cigars.

Cigars!

Both of us enjoyed a good cigar after a pleasant dinner, especially when combined with a fine glass of port or cognac.

But good cigars were hard to find. The Castro take-over in Cuba in 1959 seemed to have disrupted the flow of excellent Cuban cigars to Britain. As a member of the Canadian High Commission, I was entitled to some diplomatic supplies but the only cigars available were a machine-made brand produced in Canada (I won't mention the brand---it is still in existence---to avoid lawyer's letters) that burned hot and harsh.

The only good thing about them was that they were cheap, really cheap.

As a digression, can I mention that the diplomatic supplies also included a gin made in Canada, which sold for under a dollar for a 26 ounce bottle, The gin was not strong on flavour but was strong in alcohol. During the cold winters in Yorkshire, we used the gin as windshield cleaning fluid in our Ford Anglia---it was cheaper, and better, than the commercial brands available at the service stations. Besides it was pleasant to smell the juniper scent when we spritzed the windshield.

But back to home-made cigars.

I had never heard of making cigars and was really skeptical. For starters, how could one grow the tobacco, given the English climate?

My friend, let's call him Freddy, patiently explained that there was a small, loosely-knit group of people in the English midlands who made their own cigars and were quite happy to share their expertise.

There was also a Church of England clergyman who produced tobacco seedlings as a hobby and shipped them around the country.

And there was someone else who was importing the special gum that one needed when rolling the cigars.

Freddy said that both our rented homes had back gardens with rose beds. We could stick some tobacco plants amongst the roses, and they would do well.

I should have said 'no'.

I am not sure why I didn't, but England in the 1960s was a place where eccentrics flourished. (and eccentricity as everyone knows is contagious---I hope that Thatcherism hasn't killed off all of it.)

So, I chipped in some money for the seedlings. When they arrived, I planted them in our round rose garden, with a statue of some ancient goddess in the centre looking down at me.

I thought she had a disapproving look about her.

Contrary to my expectations that the plants would wither and die in the cool damp spring, they took hold and started to throw out new leaves.

Freddy, who had studied some chemistry and biology at university, had been doing research on how to fertilize the plants.

He claimed that the absolutely best fertilizer for tobacco plants was the urine of pregnant women---something to do with ph balance and hormones and some other stuff I forget.

As it happened, both our wives were pregnant at the time.

I doubted very much that our wives would agree to pee in a plastic bucket just so Freddy and I could ladle the stuff onto the tobacco plants.

But they agreed!!

Pat and I used to joke through the various pregnancies that there was something called 'preggy brain' which allowed mothers-to-be to ignore the small stuff---like your husband asking you to pee in a bucket.

From time to time--- always at night---I would take the bucket out and 'water' the tobacco plants.

The effect was almost magical. Soon the plants were covered with huge, oval leaves.

When Freddy's research suggested they were ready for harvesting, I picked the leaves and strung them on strands of piano wire.

Then I hung the wires from hooks in the garage, above our car, with the leaves hanging down.

Now, I have to insert a technical point. Tobacco leaves are normally 'cured' (a process a little like fermentation) in kilns in which the temperature and humidity are carefully controlled, before the leaves are turned into cigarettes, pipe tobacco or cigars.

The amateur cigar makers in Britain couldn't figure out how to replicate a kiln in the average home so they changed the sequence of things. They let the leaves dry, as we did in our garages, and once they were dry, they rolled them into cigars. They then cured the cigars by storing them in metal boxes and placing them over an Aga stove or furnace for several weeks, if they were lucky enough to have one of those.

I was in the midst of a busy spell at the office when the leaves were dry enough to roll, and we agreed that Freddy would go ahead with some of his leaves and make the first cigars.

Now, here is a second technical point (sorry for all these technical details). According to Freddy, the best Cuban cigars were rolled in hot, humid factories, on the sweaty thighs of young women. This rolling on moist thighs meant that the leaves didn't crack and it gave a certain salty tang to the outer leaves (the 'wrapping') of the cigars.

Looking back, I am not sure that Freddy's claim was based on solid research or whether it was just the product of some erotic fantasy.

In any event, Freddy's wife was adamant. She would pee in a bucket, but she would not roll cigars on her thighs.

I didn't even ask Pat.

So, Freddy rolled some cigars on his own thighs, and put them in a metal box.

Neither of us had a place that was warm enough to cure the cigars, so Freddy talked himself into the heating plant of a major building in downtown London (that's all the description I will give) and placed the box on top of a boiler.

After a few weeks, he retrieved the box and gave me one of the cigars to try.

Freddy was a good friend and I didn't want to hurt his feelings but the cigars looked awful. They were thin in parts, fat in other parts---perhaps his thighs were too muscular (he was a sometime weightlifter).

They looked a little like the cheroots the villains smoked in old-time westerns.

He offered me a chance to light one of them but I declined.

He lit one, took a puff and coughed. He said that it was burning a little hot---not enough filler or something.

I decided that do-it-yourself cigar making was not for me.

That left all the strings of tobacco leaves in the garage.

What to do with them?

Pat and I were getting ready to return to Canada for home leave and then a posting to another country.

Before I had decided what to do with the leaves, the real estate firm through which we were renting the house, announced that an inspector would be coming to check to make sure that we hadn't damaged the premises or the furnishings.

The house was owned by a wealthy couple, who lived in Morocco, and it had some lovely and valuable furnishings, including a painting by Constable.

The inspector was a wiry, short, elderly and taciturn fellow who went though the house checking off an inventory that was prepared before we moved in. He finished with the house and then moved to the garage.

I saw him see the tobacco leaves but he didn't say anything. He focused on the condition of the floor and the garage doors.

Suddenly, he pointed up and blurted out, "What's that?"

I explained that it was tobacco and we would of course remove it before we left.

After telling the tobacco story at the Immigration office, one of the Canadian Officers, a pipe smoker, said he would take the tobacco and try to turn it into pipe tobacco. He and a friend came and collected the tobacco.

We left for Canada in June 1966 and I lost touch with the Officer and never heard whether he was able to produce pipe tobacco.

That was the end of my cigar-making experiment.

But there is a little more to the story.

In November 1979, Iranian students and militants seized the US embassy and took hostage 66 American officials who were kept prisoner until 1981.

Six other Americans were able to escape capture and were sheltered at great risk to themselves and their wives by the Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor and a pipe-smoking Canadian Immigration officer, John Sheardown.

Yes, that's the same fellow who took my tobacco.

We all know the outline of what has become known as the Canadian Caper, of how the Canadian Parliament had to hold an almost unprecedented secret session to authorize the issuance of Canadian passports to the six Americans, and of how they were spirited out of Iran with the help of CIA-produced counterfeit visas.

But if you wish to refresh your memory about the ingenuity and outstanding bravery of the Taylor and Sheardown couples, please click here.

After returning to Canada, I decided that cigar smoking was not good for my health and I stopped.

But when I see or smell a fine cigar, say a premium Romeo y Julieta, I get a strong whiff of nostalgia.


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See you on July 25th for Posting #79 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting, or email me at johnpathunter@gmail.com.