Perfumed passions

As a child my grandmother took me to see Danny Kaye at the movies. I don't remember the title of the show, perhaps 'Me and the Colonel' or 'Merry Andrew'? We went to the Playhouse theater where I was overwhelmed with the gorgeous architecture. To my childlike mind it looked like a castle with a resident Prince Charming dancing across the screen. The building was actually a Tudor revival style and not like a real castle at all, but try telling that to a five year old. I had stars in my eyes and a song in my heart all day long. Gran wouldn't buy any of the treats on display and insisted on bringing along a tin of homemade fairy cakes for us to eat. Her handbag was big enough to hide the biscuit tin and sturdy enough that the cakes did not get damaged at all. After the movie was over, we wandered across the road to the park which is now named Farewell Park, but in those days was known as something else. Gran sat us down on a bench at the bottom of the war memorial and unearthed her picnic. Home made lemonade (still not sure where she got the lemons in the middle of a city) anyhow, there we sat with me barely able to sit still as I enthused about Danny Kaye while sipping the juice and destroying the fairy cakes. Gran nodded along for a while and then said 'Enough of that. It's all just make-believe.' What? How could the movie not be real? I imagined Danny Kaye living in a world inhabited by gorgeous people and singing and laughing all the days of his life. And yet the truth was stranger than fiction. Abused as a child and never very clever at school he found comedy allowed him to escape the reality of life. He became the best non-Chinese Asian cook in the world just because he made up his mind that he wanted to. No challenge was too great. He learned to dance within weeks of being signed for a movie even though he had never danced a step in his life. But the strangest thing of all was his skill with languages. He never learnt German or French but was so clever at faking it that he could have long conversations with native speakers where it was them that doubted their own abilities. They thought he was speaking a dialect that they didn't know, when all the time he was speaking gobbledy gook and absolute rubbish with a straight face. A bit like me sometimes. I speak with authority even when I am not sure of the facts. Another of my Gran's sayings was 'Fake it until you make it.' So, I blame Gran for that personality flaw. Anyhow back to Danny Kaye. I never forgot how that movie made me feel and how excited I was to see a great actor on the screen. So, when I watch movies at home, it doesn't have the ambience of the Playhouse theater, but for a moment I am taken back to my childhood and that golden time when I had no clue what life had in store for us all. No red velvet seats in my lounge, but comfortable nonetheless.

My uncle Gerald bought my mother some perfume one year. A huge, I mean seriously huge, bottle of some awful concoction. The bottle was almost as tall as me. I stood looking at that bright red and yellow liquid and thought that it must surely smell divine. My mother thanked her brother sweetly and after he had left I asked if we could try the perfume? She said 'Nope, that stuff can take paint off the side of a barn and smells like cat ......' I have no idea what happened to that bottle of so-called perfume. But I know what perfume my mother really loved: Chanel number 5. One bottle a year at Christmas and it was only taken out for special occasions and used sparingly. I still love the smell and yes, I still cannot afford it myself. My perfume of choice is something on sale for $20. But now, the question is, do I wear perfume during lockdown? Here I am at home by myself with a son who has no sense of smell (inherited from his Dad, anosmia for those who want the scientific name). And who do I wear the perfume for anyway? All those years that I would agonise about which perfume to buy and all along I was trying to please myself and not others. Adverts encourage us to think that perfumes will attract a mate with big strong biceps and lots of money. When, truthfully, nope, nah, nada, it's all a lie. We buy it because it brings back good memories or makes us feel feminine or pretty or even sophisticated. Hieroglyphics in Egypt dating back 5,000 years wrote of perfume or incense burning while communing with the Gods. And now some museums are re-producing perfumes based on what was found in the Pyramids to connect us to the past. They have a perfume taken from the original writings of Shakespeare ... okay that was not found in the pyramids. But museums are realizing that perfume is part of our experiences. They can use an odorant (... yes, like deodorant ... nope, not really) machine that detects the molecules from ancient items and re-produces them. Our nose can detect a trillion smells and warn us of danger, friends or foes or remind us of moments in time. The scientists did tests on a group of people and the least amount of smells someone could detect was 80 million and the best about a thousand trillion. Not sure how many smells I can sniff out, but I do know a carnation from a rose and that orchids don't usually have any perfume at all. Flowers are my 'go to' for favourite perfume of the era, but the ozone of the sea and the waft of a wave on the seashore does it for me every time. Sandalwood and Cedar, divine ... aah well you get my drift. Anything natural is great. Not so sure of the smell of linen that is freshly ironed. But then I seldom iron anything and never buy linen if I can help it.

Now back to the Egyptians and their love of perfume. The infused oil they loved to bury with their pharaohs was Kyphi. Sixteen ingredients. Resins and juniper, myrrh and honey and others like Nile lotus and Madonna lilies, all pounded together until the smell was just right. Each temple had its own recipe, fiercely guarded and then drawn on the walls of the tombs for the dead to take with them. There is even a special perfume room at Edfu where the concoctions were created. Nothing was too much trouble in pleasing the gods. Well, these days it is not the gods we worry about as much as whether our workmates or loved ones are assailed with our body odours. They used perfumes in their day to day lives too. Much like we use scented candles today. But the Egyptians would place concentrated oil on the heads and as the heat of the body and the day increased, the perfume would release its molecules. But just in case you thought the Egyptians were the original perfume makers, no, that accolade goes to the Chinese. 7,000 years ago they were busy mixing spices and herbs, barks and flowers, oils and seeds. But perhaps it goes even further back in time to cave men who burned fragrant wood on their fires to keep away personal smells and insects? Can you picture it. Mrs Cave Woman sniffed the trees in the woods and pointed to the one that pleased her. I suppose we still do that. I go into the pharmacy and spray the offerings on my arm until I find the one that appeals to me. And what is so special about the Chanel number 5 that was beloved by Marilyn Munroe? Well, Coco Chanel had spent most of her youth in an orphanage run by nuns. She loved the smell of freshly laundered linen and when she charged Ernest Beaux to make her first perfume, she said 'I don't want to smell like a rose garden.' And the bottle? The style was chosen from the whiskey bottle her lover, Arthur Capel used. And number 5? It was her favourite number that she ascribed to being her lucky charm. And it has proved to be her lasting legacy, a gentle waft of a smell across the mists of time.

In 1924 Coco gave the controlling shares of Chanel number 5 to the Wertheimer brothers so that she could concentrate on the fashion industry. But when she later regretted the decision because of the huge profits, she wanted it all back. She used World War 11 to try and wrest the control back, saying that the Wertheimers were Jews and she was an Aryan woman and therefore she should be in charge. If Chanel was known as a Nazi sympathiser, the sales would drop and, so, the Wertheimers came to an agreement with Coco not to reveal her involvement. She was given 2% of the company and earned mega millions from her connection. She was allowed to create more scents if she so desired, but she had learnt her lesson and never did. Just like the fake Tudor facade of the Playhouse theater, the story of Coco and her perfume is all make believe and hype. We can choose to look at the external picture of a rich and powerful woman or on the seedier side to her life. Or do we all have flaws we don't want people to see? Am I a closet racist? Or a sexist? Or a whatever ist? I have been known to pass judgement at times on an impulse. And yes, I do look at others and think how fortunate I have been. But is that just being grateful for what I have been given? Or is it a form of criticism of their choices? Do we all wear facades and masks? The pundits say that when you give thanks for what you have, that the Universe will reward you with an abundance. Did Coco get her abundance? Did Mrs Cave Woman consider herself lucky to have a mate who could chop down trees or forage for sweet smelling grasses? Do I?