The Little Boy Who Didn’t Like Corned Beef

Susan Welsh talks to the Aberdeen author who set his latest thriller during the city’s typhoid epidemic of 1964

When he started writing his latest thriller, the Little Boy Who Didn’t Like Corned Beef, the ongoing health crisis was unheard of.

But Eric R Davidson’s crime novel has proved rather topical as it is set in 1964, the year Aberdeen was gripped by a health scare, caused by a typhoid outbreak.

“I was nine, going on 10 during the outbreak and my only real memory of it is that we got more time off school than usual – and it was lovely weather,” said Eric, who grew up in the Mastrick area of the city.

“Unlike the current health crisis when you were encouraged to stay at home, we were allowed to play outdoors but had to remember not to share food and drinks.

“My neighbour was taken off to hospital with typhoid, and that seemed to bring the outbreak much closer to home.

“The coronavirus was unheard of when I started writing this book, but we were in full lockdown by the time it was published.

“A lot of what I was writing, admittedly on a far smaller scale, was very similar to what we went through in 1964.”

Fifty-six years ago, the city of Aberdeen was on full lockdown.

Schools were closed, people had to isolate, and there was a travel ban as frantic attempts were made to find the source of the typhoid outbreak.

Eventually it was found to be a contaminated tin of Argentinian corned beef, sold in a branch of the William Low grocery chain.

The city, then a hugely