CHRIS RUNDLE

HEALTHY AND VALUE FOR MONEY - CHRIS RUNDLE HAS SOME TURKEY RECIPES TO SHARE, AS WELL AS HIS THOUGHTS...

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USED to joke that ‘sapo carbonis detergens’ was our family motto.

It wasn't, of course: it was what was embossed on every bar of Wright's Coal Tar soap, that pungently aromatic cleanser whose distinctive niff was strong enough to escape from the bathroom and scent the whole of the upstairs.

Together with Pears Transparent Soap it is a survivor from the 19th century, though Pears beat it to the market by some years. Launched in 1807 when Cornish farmer's son Andrew Pears began making it in a factory off Oxford Street, it was the world’s first mass-market translucent soap. It was also promoted as containing glycerine and being rather more wholesome than many of the inferior soaps that were then being cooked up in dodgy back street operations.

During its development it achieved a number of other firsts: works of art were commissioned for a successful brand advertising campaign, which was further helped by the endorsement of celebrities such as Lily Langtry - the favourite squeeze of Albert, Prince of Wales - the future King Edward VII.