Are we obsessed with cleanliness in the Western world? Too much fuss about a little dirt may be doing us more harm than good.
When I was a child, few people had showers installed in their homes, and those that did wouldn't think of having a shower every day - let alone twice a day, as some modern people do. We had a bathroom, with a bath, but we tended to have one bath a week - on bath night.
Constant washing of our bodies actually reduces our ability to fend off illnesses, just as too much washing of our hair affects its texture.
When I was a child we had an outside loo for many years, though at least it wasn't a long drop. There was a really old-style chain to yank, and a cracked old seat to sit on. The worst thing about going to the toilet in that outhouse was that the spiders and flies thought it was their house too.
I cringe when I see all the ads on television for toilet cleaners, with women turning up their noses at the smell, and ducks flying around in strange little aeroplanes dropping some cleanser into the bowl, and larger-than-life germs screaming with agony at being flushed down the drain.
It's all so barmy. Everyone on this planet goes to the toilet, and turning up our noses at the process, as though it was somehow non-human, is just nonsense.
I wince at the ad where a mother rushes to clean her child's hands because he's touched something dirty. An "invisible" layer appears about him, and we're informed that he's protected from germs. Poor kid - he's more likely to less resistance to germs.
Germs aren't the end of the world in human life. Bacteria aren't the plague. Forgetting to wash our hands won't kill us. Picking up our food off the floor after we've inadvertently dropped it will not harm us.
In another ad, we have a mother blathering on about all the bacteria around her kitchen. She's happily spraying everything in sight with some "bacteria-killer". I hate to think what the spray is actually doing to food in that kitchen.
My grandmother had a saying, You've got to eat a bit of dirt before you die, and it's something I've repeated to my own children, and my grandchildren. The message must be getting home: my four-year-old grandson dropped the icecream off his cone the other day, calmly picked it up and carried on licking. He's still alive at this point.
Don't get me wrong. I think we should wash our hands when we go to the toilet. We need to wash our hands if we've been doing some dirty job, like cleaning out a sump, or digging out the compost heap, or dealing with the dog's poo. Most of us will naturally wash our hands without too much thought, when necessary, and we can teach our children that certain things aren't healthy.
And of course surgeons and dentists and doctors should wash their hands before attending to patients. These things are sensible.
What I object to is the over-concentration on washing, and the mania with germs. It's another one of those 21 st century peculiarities which would make our forebears laugh themselves silly.
