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Stirring Times

If I'm known for anything in this life, it's that I'm a fairly considerable tea-holic ... like 20 or so mugs a day, each with four or five spoonfuls of sugar.
That's about one pound of the stuff per 24 hours, and of which hands-raised-in-horror habit more later. Doctors simply cannot work out why, in more than half a century of bounteous sugar-laden tea drinking, I have not gained one single ounce in weight. Or, indeed, lost it.

But while my addiction to the Mighty Teabag has even been noted in other people's books and was mentioned in seeming awe during a TV interview, I should make it clear that I would by far prefer to be drinking other liquids instead. Beer and wine especially, along with hot chocolate, fresh milk, fruit juices, pure water and even coffee, the latter whose taste and aroma I for some reason abhor.

I have tried them all and been refreshed by a few, but always comes the need to "wash it down" with ... yes, another half-pint of tea. What I jokingly call the nectar of the gods and antidote to all ills.

Why this should be is not complicated. I just happen to like the stuff. At breakfast time it jolts me into true wakefulness, and somehow oils my mental joints. When earning my living churning out words, successive mugfuls of Lipton's, Earl Grey or Winston Churchill Blend both keep me awake and reinforce the creative juices. Don't ask me why. It just does. Even when I'm socializing in some bar, a dose of good old Camellia sinensis somehow lends itself to lucid conversation amid all the slurred talk around me.

You can blame Christmas for turning me into a tea addict. Christmas 1951, to be precise, at which time I was based in Pakistan with Britain's Royal Air Force. I was a mere youth from a family of notable drinkers, but had never felt the urge to join their regular knees-ups.

That Christmas in broiling Karachi was a memorable one indeed. Alcohol was not encouraged among we erks, except on special occasions. Thus on Christmas morning we were each given two bottles of beer as we climbed aboard a lorry to take us back to our quarters. All my mates immediately began swigging with gusto, but I was not bothered either way. I thought I might quietly drink the beer later that evening, but peer pressure dictated otherwise. Like ... "Get it down yer, shorty!"

So I did, mildly surprised that I rather liked the taste and its refreshing qualities on this steaming hot and humid December 25. That's about all I remembered in the next hour or so, apart from suddenly feeling violently and horrendously ill and almost vomiting my heart up. I vaguely recall hanging over the side of the lorry, my ankles held by the other lads, and making Jackson Pollock patterns on the roadway with what remained of that morning's breakfast and the previous evening's dinner. Half-digested oranges and bananas added technicolor to what I heaved up over the last mile.

Someone dumped me onto my bed, which in turn received three or four gushes of nasties. It wasn't so much the vomiting per se, more the conviction that I was actually dying. Since those days I have been lucky to hurdle one or two quite nasty illnesses, but none of them were anywhere near so bad as that inebriated morning.

My recovery took around three days, during which our Pakistani "tea wallah"Ó poured mug after mug of a local blend down my throat. "To clear the tubes, sahib ... to clear the tubes ..."Ó It tasted absolutely beautiful, a heavenly nectar.

Which is why tea quickly, and for ever after, became my drink of choice. In truth, I really do wish I could down a few lagers with the lads, and not feel embarrassed when served glass after glass of wine at official banquets, when I go through the motions of swallowing it. Even my wise Scottish doctor is forever urging me to force down one pint of Guinness per day for genuinely healthful reasons. I can't. To me it tastes like burnt tar, while beers seem like so much monkey's pee. The most I can manage is a sip or two, but my clutching a glass is all a reluctant charade.

Why those original bottles of beer made me so ill I will never know. A reminder from on high that my family was already more than doing its bit in the drinking stakes? Or am I on earth to convince the medical profession that excessive sugar intake is not half so dangerous as they would have us believe?

Back to my wise physician, who told me: :"The sugar does not harm you because, with your frenetic lifestyle, you simply burn it straight off. But if you suddenly get fat, for goodness sake come and see me immediately."That was 12 years ago, and he's still waiting. Me? I still have the physique of a jockey. I guess the Pakistan beer was a very special Christmas present, doled out by Fate.