The spartan years

I would define my life nowadays as privileged. I have a loving partner, a comfortable home, enough money, good health, plenty to eat and drink, and (at the moment) I live in a peaceful country. But I wasn't always so privileged.

Between 1973 and 1979 I lived in a tatty bed-sit in Abbey Road, London (yes, that Abbey Road). There was no central heating, just a small gas fire, there was no toilet or wash basin (only a communal bathroom downstairs), there was no washing machine, there was a one-ring cooker, there was damp all the way up the staircase of the building, and needless to say, any requests to the landlord for repairs or improvements were ignored.

I could have afforded somewhere more comfortable, but I was trying to save money to buy a flat so I was economising. I never invited anyone round, as the shabbiness would have been too embarrassing.

The one-ring cooker discouraged any serious cooking, so I lived mainly on snacks like fruit, biscuits, fruit cake, boiled eggs and peanut butter sandwiches. Not surprisingly, I was a lot thinner then (about 10½ stone).

The other tenants weren't interested in joint approaches to the landlord to get things fixed. The elderly woman upstairs had a serious whisky habit and was usually drunk. The elderly woman downstairs just wanted a quiet life with no fuss or bother.

To keep myself amused, and avoid cabin fever in my tiny bolthole, I would go to all the museums and galleries and take long walks round the neighbourhood. I went to the cinema regularly, especially the Everyman Cinema in Hampstead. Or I would take a book to one of the local coffee bars and sit reading for hours on end. In the summer I went to seaside resorts, my favourites being Eastbourne, Folkestone, Hastings and Broadstairs.

Then in 1981 I met Jenny, and things took a turn for the better.

The unstoppable crisp

We may all be cutting back on spending because of the recession, but some things are sacrosanct. Last year our consumption of crisps went up by 5.7 per cent.

That's an extra 208 million bags of those crunchy slivers of fried potato we're all mysteriously addicted to. Can you go anywhere without that raucous crunching sound from someone's favourite snack hovering in the background?

Nobody can really explain why we're such suckers for something so insubstantial and so unhealthy, and so absurdly expensive for what it is (raw ingredient - a potato or two with some seasoning).

Is it that fabulous crunching sound as we demolish a crisp? Is it those weird and wonderful artificial flavours? Is it just the secret thrill of eating something especially noisy and ostentatious? Whatever the reason, we're hooked on them.

Supposedly* we owe this uncontrollable addiction to a hotel diner in Saratoga Springs, New York State, in 1853 who complained that his fried potatoes were too thick and too soggy. Chef George Crum responded by slicing the potatoes as thin as he could. The diner was so enthusiastic about the result that they became a regular menu item, "Saratoga Chips". And the rest, as they say, is history - and big business.

Now crisps are the UK's third most popular snack after fresh fruit and chocolate. We just can't get enough of those curly wafers of fried spud.

But I have a shameful confession to make. I'm not a great crisp devotee. Actually I prefer hula hoops. Or Bombay Mix. So I'd better not set foot in Saratoga Springs. An angry mob might just chase me out of town.

* So it says in Wikipedia.