Life

Nuala McCann: Yes, I'm all for vintage, kids, but there's really nothing new in it

My husband had a herringbone tweed crombie with a collar that turned up just so and deep pockets lined in scarlet silk that were perfect for nursing a pint of beer all the way home from a late-night party. We were Army Surplus people, War on Want people, Oxfam people

Nuala McCann

Nuala McCann

Nuala McCann is an Irish News columnist and writes a weekly radio review.

Vintage? In our day it was just called second hand – but I'm all for it either way
Vintage? In our day it was just called second hand – but I'm all for it either way Vintage? In our day it was just called second hand – but I'm all for it either way

WHEN it comes to recycling, reader, I used to be Mrs Big Fat Smug. Our black bin contains virtually nothing – tis no Herculean task for the man who wheels it out of a Wednesday evening.

He does not need to employ much muscle for the small bit of tat inside.

“Empty,” I’d say like we were doing our bit for the planet.

“Empty,” he’d say, before returning to ensure that all the plastics going into our blue bin were perfectly washed and the tinned bean cans scrubbed to a brassy shine.

“Do we have to?” I ask.

“Yes,” says he.

Ay, there’s the rub. Our black bin is empty but our blue bin is the cup that overfloweth. We may soon have to sneak out on bin night and deposit our extras in unsuspecting neighbours’ bins. Please God old grumpy cat won’t tout.

Once, I thought our packed blue bin was a good thing – we were recycling gurus. Get us. Now I’m deeply ashamed.

Not so ashamed that I’m washing my hair with a bar of soap or refilling my everlasting shampoo bottle but I’m heading in that direction.

Blame the young people. Everybody does. To many of them, buying a coffee in a takeaway cup is not on. Whatever your poison, you take it in your own reusable cup.

They swig from everlasting cups, they carry canvas bags, they shop vintage, which is truly a polite way of saying Oxfam. Not that we didn’t shop vintage – we just called it second hand and got on with it.

A man was chatting on the radio the other day about a lovely second-hand coat he bought at a London market long ago – he put it on, shoved his hands in the pockets and they still felt warm. He hadn’t thought before, he said, that they were probably dead man’s pockets.

My favourite student outfit was a second-hand turquoise Aran jumper, my Brutus jeans and my aunt’s old brown suede coat.

My husband had a herringbone tweed crombie with a collar that turned up just so and deep pockets lined in scarlet silk that were perfect for nursing a pint of beer all the way home from a late-night party.

We were Army Surplus people, War on Want people, Oxfam people.

Remember the fluffy parka that was wonderful until it rained and it smelled like a fox had passed away in the corner of the student living room?

Remember love beads and spinning necklaces and leather wrist straps from Paris with your name on them? And remember that we wore second-hand or vintage back then because student grants didn’t stretch so very far...

Now it’s all back in. It is as if the world has swept full circle. Young people are leading the push for the planet. They’re putting the brakes on and choosing to savour their lives out of the fast lane. Or at least some of them are.

It’s a brave new world of make, make do and mend.

Apparently, making your own yoghurt is back as “a thing”.

Sue Reed who lives in Northumberland and runs a business knitting with – yes – recycled wool – told the Guardian she’s been doing it for years. She grows her own veg, tries to avoid the supermarkets and ate seasonally long before it became zeitgeisty.

At a stage, we all were like that. My mother grew leeks and onions and carrots out our back. Yoghurt was a little high end back in the days of vegetable roll.

But I remember as an au pair in Paris, watching Madame make the yoghurt in a nifty little machine for the bébés. Plus ca change, plus c’est la même chose. Now, yoghurt machines are back in fashion.

Roll back to those months as an au pair in France and I shall always remember the day Madame handed me an artichoke and asked me to cook it. The look on my face was the French for wtf.

We didn’t have covers for our cooker rings at home so I nearly set the family’s Versailles apartment ablaze when I left the covers on and turned up the temperature to do the spuds.

As for making nettle soup – it never quite hit the spot that’s just for Irish stew.

What I’m saying is that the modern “grow your own”, “make do and mend” and “shop local” harks back to simpler times.

Here’s to home-made yoghurt and zero packaging, to vintage and to vinyl – I’ll drink to that... from my everlasting cup of course!