Tag Archives: Cocaine

Happy Birthday Eric Clapton

There are guitarist: amateur, professional, hobbyists, virtuoso and there is Eric Clapton. To me and many others the undisputed best guitarist ever. I don’t even mention him in my top 10list because he basically is a league on his own.

Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE (born 30 March 1945) is an English rock and blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist and separately as a member of the Yardbirds and of Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and influential guitarists of all time.

Eric Clapton was born on 30 March 1945 in Ripley, Surrey, England, to 16-year-old Patricia Molly Clapton (7 January 1929 – March 1999) and Edward Walter Fryer (21 March 1920 – 15 May 1985), a 25-year-old soldier from Montreal, Quebec.

After a brief encounter between 16-year-old Patricia Clapton and Edward Walter Fryer ,a 24-year-old Canadian soldier stationed in England during Second World War, Eric Clapton was born and then raised by his grandparents in Ripley, a village outside London.

Edward returned to Canada after the war and never knew of his famous son in his lifetime. Music was very much a part of his whole adult life, playing piano and singing in pubs at the time he met Eric’s mother in England. It was said he had a sound like Nat King Cole. Eric Clapton got an acoustic Hoyer guitar, made in Germany, for his thirteenth birthday, and musical history was made.

Elvis, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eddie van Halen and Jim Croce all influenced my musical taste in one way or another but it was Eric Clapton who defined it.

Celebrating his birthday with some of his music.

For my mum

On 20 March 1991, Clapton’s four-year-old son, Conor, died after falling from the 53rd-floor window of his mother’s friend’s New York City apartment at 117 East 57th Street. Conor’s funeral took place on 28 March at St Mary Magdalene’s Church in Clapton’s home village in Ripley, Surrey. This tragedy inspired Eric Clapton to write the song Tears in Heaven, which he co wrote with Will Jennings.

He even sounds great on a mash up of Billie Jean.

That time we gave Cocaine to our kids for a sore throat and toothaches.

tootch

How things have changed. Nowadays we wouldn’t dream of giving our children cocaine to treat sore throats or toothaches, Firstly because we know how devastating cocaine is and secondly we would be arrested,

But in days of yore it was perfectly acceptable to give you offspring and indeed yourself a ‘healthy’ dose of cocaine.

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cocaine

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What addiction? The weird world of medical advise.

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Substances we now know to be highly addictive and even lethal weren’t always seen that way. In the late 19th and early 20th century heroin was seen as a cough medicine and coca cola’s secret ingredient was cocaine.(Have a coke and a smile)

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Cigarettes were  recommended for pregnant women. Even arsenic was used in confectionery and advertised as something that would keep you young.

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Below are just some of the examples of medical advise and advertisements used in the past.

What could go wrong?

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Why stop with beer? Why not use whiskey or rum to get your child to sleep.bf0a532a4949f6b196735524c8560968

Arsenious Acid granules. Nothing like a little Aresenic to cure what ails you. Notice the inconsistency of the dosage. Each granule could contain anywhere from 1 to 50 grain and you were to take 1-2 granules, therefore you may have from 1 to 100 grain in any one dose. Thankfully they have now labelled it as poison just in case.

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Have a smoke for white teeth

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Heroin and Cannabis were marketed  as  potent cough suppressants.

cough syrup

heroin-cough-syrup

 

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