Post 89 Unfit for human consumption

 ‘Telephone for you, Mr Lambert.’

I groaned; why, oh why, do people have to ring in the middle of my Monday clinic interrupting me when I’m busy with a patient.

‘Is it urgent?’ I ask of the nurse who had brought the message.

Apparently it was so I apologised to the ‘dishabille’ patient.

The caller was new to me, Dr Crispan Brown.    He introduced himself as an occupational health doctor who acted as advisor to various local manufacturers, including the giant Best British Baking Company who had a large factory only a mile from the hospital.    Their bread, biscuits and cakes are a household name throughout the country.

‘We have a rather urgent problem at the factory,’ Dr Brown explained after apologising for the intrusion.    ‘There’s been an unfortunate accident this morning,    I need your advice as to whether a certain batch of loaves are fit to be sold.’

‘What precisely is the problem,’ I asked.

‘I rather not say any more on the phone; it’s rather sensitive.    I wouldn’t want any word of this to reach public ears.    Would you mind if we met privately somewhere?’

 ‘OK. Meet me at the hospital at say 5.30.    I’ll have finished the clinic by then.’
‘No, I should prefer to meet you at home, either yours or mine, I don’t mind.’

I suggested the following weekend but this apparently was not soon enough so reluctantly I agreed he could come to my home that evening.   

Dr Brown proved to be a slightly built man of about fifty, nondescript in appearance and timid of manner.     He had a pallid complexion, grey hair, a grey suit, showing signs of wear at elbows and cuffs, and he spoke hesitantly in a voice that was scarcely more than a whisper.

‘I’m so sorry to barge in on you in this manner,’ he began, ‘but we had an unfortunate incident at the

factory this morning.    Regrettably some foreign bodies have been incorporated in a batch of loaves we were baking.     I would be  grateful if you would advise whether the bread is fit to be eaten. ’

He went on to explain in great detail that each Sunday night the bread production line stopped to allow the various industrial machines to be ‘deep cleaned’.     An accident had occurred with the commercial ‘mixer’; a machine very similar to a domestic food mixer but very much larger; about eight feet across and eight feet deep.

To clean it, a man is lowered into the bowl.    He then used a large wooden paddle, that looked and was shaped like a small oar, to scrap the bowl before it was ‘power hosed’ clean.    Carelessly, the

worker had left the paddle in the bowl where it remained until the next morning when flour, yeast salt and water were added and the giant mixer switched on!     The result was that the wooden paddle was smashed then splintered into a thousand pieces.    The dough had been moulded, divided into loaves and then baked before it had been sliced and packaged.     Fortunately the mistake was spotted by the quality control department before the resulting loaves left the factory.

I listened somewhat impatiently whilst Dr Brown related this story. It seemed to me that this long preamble was unnecessary; all he needed to do was to show me a sample of the bread.    Finally he did so, producing from his brief case a standard small white loaf.     Rather dramatically he then produced a bread board and a sharp knife.

 

The knife cut through the loaf with difficulty, revealing the splinters of wood. Some were a couple of inches long and as sharp as a needle at both ends.  

 ‘It’s blatantly obvious that no-one could eat those,’ I exclaimed.   ‘Their guts would be cut to shreds.     It wouldn’t even be safe to feed them to cattle! Anyone can see that.    Why on earth have you bothered to come all this way to tell you what you must surely already know?’

He had the grace to look very apologetic.

‘Yes I do know,’ he whispered, ‘and I’m sorry that it’s been necessary to trouble you.     But to discard

the whole of a morning’s production will cost the company in excess of fifty thousand pounds.    I’m required to get a second opinion to confirm my view.

 You will of course be recompensed for your time,’ he added swiftly, obviously realising that I was not best pleased to give up my time to offer medical advice that my five year old son could have given.

And I was duly recompensed.     I thought perhaps I might be offered a year’s supply of biscuits and cakes but no.  Within the week a letter of thanks arrived together with a cheque that was more valuable to me than a whole day’s work at the hospital!

 Thought for the day.  

England is the only country in the world where the food is more dangerous than sex      Jackie Mason   1931 - 2021

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