COLUMNIST KATHY CLUGSTON

LIFE & TIMES

Kathy Clugston is a freelance radio presenter. She chairs the long-running BBC Radio 4 programme ‘Gardeners’ Question Time’ and presents the weekly entertainment show ‘The Ticket’ on BBC Radio Ulster.

EDITED BY

KATHY CLUGSTON

SMELL YOU LATER

This month, Kathy describes what life is like with no sense of smell.

“My daughter’s got no nose.” “How does she smell?” “Terrible!”

This oft-repeated joke was one of my late stepdad’s favourites, borne of my anosmia. That’s the medical term for having no sense of smell. I don’t often tell people about my condition, not because I’m embarrassed about it in any way but because it’s usually too much effort to explain it: “No, not even perfume… no, not food either…honestly, nothing! Yes, I am lucky I can’t smell B.O…”

In evolutionary terms, smell is the oldest of the senses, essential for feeding, mating and avoiding danger, but we know relatively little about it. If you have a properly functioning nose, you probably rarely think about the minor miracles it performs. Yet without smell the world is a totally different place.

When I was a child, smelling was a game I played along with. Driving past a manure-rich farm, my parents would remark on the “fine country smell” and I would enthusiastically agree. Someone once let off a stink bomb at my school and everyone ran around gagging and retching, including the teacher. I was the only one who could bear to clear it up. Smelling was like a joke I wasn’t being let in on. It didn’t occur to me that I might have a medical condition. It’s estimated that more than three million people in the UK, about 5 percent of the population, have a smell disorder. There are many causes - sinus infections, viruses (including Covid 19), head injuries, polyps, diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. The condition can be temporary, intermittent or long-term. The smell function can disappear entirely (anosmia), be reduced (hyposmia), become distorted or disgusting (parosmia) or detect odours that aren’t there (phantosmia). Older people may start to find food less enjoyable, not realising that it’s their sense of smell that is deteriorating.

My anosmia is congenital. I was born without an olfactory bulb, the equipment that transmits information from the nose to the brain. I only found this out a few years ago l when I made a documentary about smell for BBC Radio 4. My Mum had taken me to a GP when I was about 10 after realising I couldn’t smell a gas leak. We were sent away none the wiser. That was the early 1980s and more is known about anosmia now, but there are still only a few clinics in the UK dealing specifically with smell and taste disorders.

Most anosmics have a poor or altered sense of taste, or more accurately “flavour”, which is closely linked to smell. Luckily for me, I am able to fully enjoy food, but anosmics who suddenly lose their sense of smell can find eating and drinking much less pleasurable, even unbearable. Not many smelling people realise how profound the emotional effects of smell loss are. How often have you picked up a scent that transports you back to a moment in your childhood? Or a holiday you once had? Or a loved one, now gone? I have never experienced this. Try to imagine waking up one day and not being able to smell your child’s freshly shampooed head, the magnolia in your garden, the toast burning in the toaster. Imagine that everything you eat tastes strange or of nothing at all. You can see why depression is common among people affected by taste and smell disorders.

My day-to-day life is only mildly affected: I have carbon monoxide alarms in the kitchen, I don’t eat food that’s past its use-by date, I don’t douse myself in eau de toilette. If, when presented with the armpit of a garment to sniff, my partner gags, I won’t wear it for a second day. But, like many other anosmics, I am aware that there is a missing dimension to my life, a door to an experience of people, places and things that is closed to me. So if you are fortunate enough to be able to wake up and smell the coffee, take a moment to breathe it in and give thanks.

Illustration by Megan Rafferty.

The charity Fifth Sense is dedicated to smell and taste disorders. www.fifthsense.org.uk

THIS MONTH’S OBSESSIONS:

Making Sense of Cancer with Hannah Fry – An emotional and courageous TV documentary in which 36-year-old maths professor Hannah Fry charts her journey with cervical cancer, and asks us to examine our attitudes to cancer treatment. Available on BBC Iplayer. Lemon Curd – Nothing new of course, but I’ve only just rediscovered it after loving it as a child. Unlike its sticky companion jam, lemon curd doesn’t require much skill to make and you only need lemons, sugar, butter and eggs. The Spying Game – Podcast taking a deep dive into the world of espionage. Impressionist Rory Bremner invites Hollywood storytellers and top international spies to separate secret agent fact from fiction.

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