Many children are wrongly labelled as having a food allergy (Photo: Alamy)
Lily’s mother dropped off her four year-old and a syringe. If her daughter accidentally encountered a peanut during her play-date, I was to inject her with adrenalin immediately.
This was a sobering lesson that not all allergies are in the mind. But sometimes I think that most of them are. Only about four per cent of children in this country suffer from a food allergy — but parents of the rest act as if their little treasures are in fatal danger from lacto-intolerance, food additives and allergies to nuts, chocolate and gluten. They press on their children strict diets and Germanic hygiene which, according to a Great Ormond Street consultant, mean ever more children need hospital treatment for reactions to common foodstuffs.
Neurotic (and usually middle-class) parents fasten on allergies to explain children’s low grades, bad moods and general disaffection. They are in and out of their GP’s surgery, seeking to identify one or more ingredients to ban. No wonder a doctor friend admitted to me that medical notes include acronyms such as FTP (first-time parent) and WW (worried well). GPs nod and listen but note down that these grown-ups come with a warning. They’re control freaks who can’t deal with life’s mess and dirt. How doctors must itch to prescribe a muddy country holiday and lots of stodgy nursery food for their offspring!
For parents on allergy alert, any activity outside their own home raises horrific possibilities. A few days after we moved, my daughter Izzy’s schoolmate and her mother came over for tea. Dust balls rolled over the floor, cardboard boxes filled the corridor, a stack of dishes rose from the sink. My visitor looked alarmed. When her daughter coughed twice, though, mummy got up and, smiling apologetically, cut short their visit. “She’s allergic to dust,” she said. Then, sneezing: “And so am I.” In her eagerness to flee the feckless mother in her squalid home, she didn’t even wait to sample my (wheat-filled, sugar-loaded) Victoria sponge.
Allergies, of course, allow neurotic parents to displace guilt. They can worry about iced cupcakes rather than workaholic schedules and fuss about the freshest source of soya milk rather than the latest marital row. Happily, children know how to sneak a treat past hyper-anxious parents. So, here’s another handy acronym for GPs: CSTP (child saner than parent)…
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Men, the saying goes, age better than women. Not in the Jagger household they don’t. Mick Jagger at 68 still tours the world with the Rolling Stones, but in the rosy-hued suit he wears on stage he looks like the Pink Panther in his Zimmer-frame years. Sir Mick may still belt out Jumping Jack Flash but he now needs a retinue of 200, including a masseuse and personal trainer, to keep him from limping.
Now look at his ex-wife, Bianca. Since her (very bitter) divorce from the rocker, the Nicaraguan beauty has thrown herself into do-gooding. She has won international human-rights awards and agitates against dictatorships in Syria and China. Her speaking engagements and protest marches leave no time for a daily massage or caviar facial. Bianca looks a lot better – and is taken more seriously. Now who’s got Satisfaction?
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I doubt that the Jaggers had a wedding list with John Lewis. But most newlyweds do — thank goodness: they are the easiest way to discharge one’s duty as guest and friend. John Lewis wants to make it even easier. The department store has conducted a survey of gift lists among couples with the same surname and found they like the same things. The Smiths want placemats and steak knives; keeping up with the Joneses involves drinking: they choose flutes and wine glasses. The Davies’s list hints at fine cuisine, with cookware from Le Creuset. But the most telling gift was the cooling rack on the Browns’ list. What a delicious image: did Gordon’s friends, Ed Balls and Charlie Whelan, present Sarah and her groom with a means to deal with his furious rants? I suppose John Lewis couldn’t provide a chewable carpet.
