Bentons

Bentons the tobacconists was on Peters Street, next to the Midland Hotel and at the base of the YMCA building, just by the Free Trade Hall on a direct route from the city, on foot, to Central Station. It was on the corner and filled the whole corner and was therefore a very substantial emporium.

As a small boy I was head high to the rounded glass display cases. They were unusual in that, unlike modern square glass case counters these were of rounded glass like a huge roll top desk only in solid glass. There was a slim wooden top which served as a resting place for puchased items. This furniture was to the left. Straight ahead was a small counter flanked by a pile of smoker's requisites of various kinds. To the right was a conventional, rectangular glass display case.

When I arrived, I was directed behind the left hand counter and I went down into the cellar where my uncle would be dealing with various items of stock. He gave me a small shiny brown paper parcel tied with string leaving a loop for my finger. The parcel contained my father's cigarettes, Wills Woodbines. I then made my way home.

During my time in the Manchester rag trade I made various visits to make my own purchases. Then I had the opportunity to assess the truly magnificent array of tobacco products. I shall begin with the lowliest of these: snuff.

One was introduced to the ways, conventions and paraphernalia of snuff by Mr McVeigh. He was a later than middle aged gentleman, gently rounded, grey haired and displaying a ring on his little finger with a large diamond. There was story to this ring that I was never privy to, but it was rumoured to have had something to do with a gambling debt. He did not seem to me to have a penchant for poker with his chubby smiling face, more to do with cribbage or even bridge being the more appropriate.

Mr McVeigh was a taker of snuff. I know it may seem to be more in tune with the seventeen sixties that the nineteen sixties but the fact was, that he took snuff, and going by the size of the stock he was not alone. Snuff is powdered tobacco and comes in three sizes of grain: gros, demigros, and fin. Why the French I know not. To think of Mr McVeigh as a Pickwickian character would be a temptation but would be without foundation, lacking as he did any expanse of girth or manner of nonsense. In fact he represented the very essence of sobriety. He favoured carnation flavoured snuff of the fin kind. He observed the convention and etiquette of tapping his snuffbox three times and offering it to the assembled company. One must always offer one’s snuff. Apart from the airtight snuff box the other essential perquisite was a dark coloured handkerchief for wiping stray snuff from one's weskit and stertoriously blowing one's nose. Paisley pattern was a sometime favourite. Only the most utilitarian snuffboxes were for sale, generally of Rosewood. As you may well know, snuffboxes became items of fashionable distinction in days gone by and there are many collections of ornamental boxes which are worth a small fortune. I am informed, that they were, in their day, part of a pickpocket’s prize haul.

I cannot remember where all the different kinds of snuff were kept, but I do know they were generally made by Wilsons of Sheffield. There were many different flavours to tempt the nostril with either a pinch between thumb and forefinger or laid carefully on the back of the hand in two tiny piles, one for each sniff. I suppose it was an easy and convenient way of taking nicotine when the bother of laborious pipe lighting was not appropriate; more suited therefore to a Georgian fop than the country squire or churchwarden by his fireside.

In later life I came upon a gentleman who took snuff of the gros grain variety without a scented flavour which he referred to as Sheffield Grit. That certainly made your eyes water.

Speaking of the churchwarden brings me nicely to the second stage of
tobacco taking. The long clay churchwarden pipe was a great favourite of the pipe smoker for a long cool draw. It is much to be seen in olde prints of gentlemen around a fireside at the Inn.

Tobacco in the guise of Plug, Thick Twist and Light Shag I will keep for a later post.

JL March 17 13:02