Jeremy Clarke Jeremy Clarke

The 100-year-old opiate had lost none of its potency

I lay upstairs with one of Michael’s military-grade tablets dissolving into my bloodstream

Credit: SOTK2011 / Alamy Stock Photo 
issue 15 October 2022

Our neighbour Michael is a keen and knowledgable attender of vides-greniers, the equivalent of our car-boot sales. His focus is on old bottles, full or empty, and old china, but he’ll pick up anything that piques his fancy.

Some months ago, for example, he bought for €1 a glass tube of opium tablets issued to the French infantry during the Great War.

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