THE WAY WE WERE
FLASHBACK: Rosalie Thun sent in this photo of the Kummerow family including Eric (far right) and and the following story. Eric’s memoirs tell of “their first introduction to the ‘smoking habit’ in the company of Ted, Gordon and Lloyd Dare, their scrub dashing friends, in one of our near ripe cornfields. One of the older boys who seemed to be well informed showed the rest of us how to make a cigarette by substituting the corn-silk for tobacco. This was used together with a piece of thin dry husk which took the place of a cigarette paper.” A lot of spit was used to hold the ‘fag’ together which added to the advantage of dampening the husk, rendering it a little less liable to burst into flames. “Facial oddities such as scorched eye brows and noses, took some very tactful explaining to irate parents. However back at the big smoke-up after having taken a big drag of this fag, we inhaled the hot acrid scenty smoke. Then everyone seemed to be possessed with similar symptoms, your eyes dilated and produced much moisture, your throat burned as if you had swallowed, a red- hot coal, your chest and lungs produced convulsive spasms, and everybody had a very urgent desire to dose this internal fire with water, which was always carried in a seven pound treacle billy on our expeditions. Needless to say, several attempts over a period of time to accustom our anatomy and satisfy our desire with this corn silk cigarette, it was decided unanimously that this ‘fag’ was not commercially viable and therefore discarded in favour of a newly discovered ready made cigarette provided by mother nature.”