Bottled cure for colds, flu and hangovers

HUDDERSFIELD, a town that sits in the middle of the country, equal distance from both east and west coasts, has enduring links with safety at sea.

Les Addy says: “I was reading a model collectors’ magazine over Christmas and there was an article in it about the history of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and the models of lifeboats there have been for collectors to acquire and maybe display.

“What took my eye was a mention of a Huddersfield firm, D and M Castings, apparently established in the 1970s, who were commissioned to make a range of model lifeboats for the RNLI.

“Several seem to have been made and one of them was a Case Tractor and a carriage. Case, of course, was associated with David Brown Tractors.

“Apparently some of the range retailed around 75p, which seems cheap, as they were metal models. The firm ceased trading due to financial difficulties.

“I have never heard of this company, nor seen any of their models. I wonder if any Examiner readers remember the Company?”

Back in 1887 Huddersfield made its first connection with the RNLI when its citizens raised £40 to build a lifeboat, named after the

A National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases report said that in families with children in school, the number of colds per child can be as high as 12 a year.

People older than 60 average fewer than one cold a year.

Ten million grandparents regularly look after their grandchildren. So put an elderly person, whose immune system has been shot by wild nights of rock and roll mayhem over four decades, into the equation and they are likely to fall victim whilst doling out love and affection.

I have a kitchen cabinet full of palliatives for when a cold comes calling.

Nothing totally stops it although in the past I’ve tried everything from sweating it out with Guinness to taking to my bed with a toilet roll and a tin of Vaseline for three days of self pity.

Walking through the supermarket the other day, I saw an item that reminded me of that wonderful cure-all that everybody’s mam used to provide in time of illness, whether to help heal a broken leg, ease the discomfort of an upset tummy or battle the symptoms of a bad cold. Yes, I’m talking Lucozade.

When she came back from the shops town, that was stationed at Norfolk until 1906.

And three years ago, the £2 million Frank and Anne Wilkinson lifeboat, which was funded by a legacy left by the Huddersfield couple who were keen sailors, was launched at Scarborough.

But our most famous lifeboat was the Jesse Lumb which was built in 1939 at the cost of £9,000.

Funds were provided by the sister of textile businessman Jesse, who died in 1929, but whose mill at Folly Hall was still known as Jesse Lumb’s until it closed in the 1980s.

The Jesse Lumb was based on the Isle of Wight and operational with a bottle of Lucozade you knew you were poorly but, on the bright side, you knew this was God’s own elixir that would put things right, because your mam said so.

So, of course, staggering from sneeze to cough to sniffle as I traversed the shopping aisles, I bought some. Not just one oldfashioned bottle of the original, but a six pack of orange-flavoured Lucozade.

I mean oranges mean vitamin C and are good for you, right?

The distinctive bottle of fizz was a byword in my days of Sunday morning football when everyone would turn up hung over from the night before, clutching a Mars Bar and a bottle of Lucozade, in the hope they would make you play like Gareth Bale.

The slogan on the bottle holds hope: “Powered by Glucose!”

And while it has a rather frightening sugar level it does add: “For that moment when you need it most.”

Many a cold winter’s morning on Leeds Road Playing Fields, with a wind whistling up your shorts to freeze your Urals, there was nothing more between man, survival and performance than a bottle of this stuff.

And this was a moment I needed it. The cold is clinging like an old relationship and a boost is needed to kick it into touch.

Besides, my mam said it was good for me. from 1939 to 1979.

She saved 280 lives in a distinguished career that included service in the RAF’s Air Sea Rescue during the Second World War. The vessel is now in the Imperial War Museum, Duxford.

Please send any more information about Huddersfield lifeboats or D and M Castings to the usual email address (see my strapline above).