An after-thought to reading about Agatha Christie and her passionate love of cream. At least half, maybe more, of the customers who use the Health Store - ours or any other Health Store - would probably prophecy for her respiratory problems, hardening of the arteries and an early death. Agatha lived quite robustly until she was 86 and I can think of relatives of mine who lived longer who had similar reprehensible and dangerous habits. Milk, when I was a child, was seen as a vital supplement for one and all; suddenly we learned that after a certain age humans don't digest milk at all easily. I was given cod liver oil (mercifully in capsule form) and Brewer's Yeast was a wonderful source of goodness; sul[phur tablets inthe spring to 'clean out the system' and that was that.

Brewer's Yeast swam into my life again recently when a young couple, who have just given birth to a premature baby, were sent to find the tablets to help the lactation process. They hadn't been able to find them anywhere and despite being shown the yeast flakes we do have in stoc, they've come back to ask for this magic formula (recommended by a midwife perhaps) that will make all things well. We will order it for them and my heart goes out to them - I hope it does the trick. In my day (fatal words, revealing great age) we were given Guinness and exhorted to keep drinking it daily to encourage the flow of milk. Same vitamins, with the added benefit of iron and, much more importantly, of relaxing the mother. Even now I feel a phantom 'letting down' of milk at the sight of a pint of Guinness! I suppose those days are past because of the growing disapproval of alcohol. A fear, part real, part moralistic, that seems to have crept over from the USA.

So fashions in healthy foods and medicines come and go, and mostly, as far as I can see, arise from our need to have amulets to keep bad things away.

I completely support any movement away from fast food, pre-cooked meals, and cruel farming techniques like battery hens. The goods in our store that help to counteract those evils I can fully and enthusiastically endorse. Supplements I am less confident about, and Homeopathy because it doesn't work for me, I have to stay silent on, but if it works for others then that's their good fortune.