Professor Allen Philips Griffiths (no relation to me) passed away aged 87 on 1 December 2014. He was a regular poster on Graeme’s original snuff site.
Many people here will have read Griff’s pages. But those who haven’t may find his site interesting and sometimes amusing. They are now maintained on the ‘Modern Snuff’ site.
May he rest in peace.
I remember reading his website back in the day. Very informative and he seemed like a really nice guy.
Book marked will give it a look over at some point…
Yes, he was a gentleman and very knowledgeable about snuff. He’s much missed.
Graeme
From some correspondence with Allen he informed me he gets through 3 oz. a week or an equivalent of 12 grams per day. That’s roughly double my intake and I consider myself a heavy user. (I buy four 1 lb drums or two 1 lb drums and four ½ drums annually plus miscellaneous 20 gram tins (such as Irish 22)).
He had done this for many years with no apparent ill effects to his health.
In the fullness of time this man had a full white Santa-Claus beard and moustache. As others have commented, how he kept it clean is a mystery.
On the question of frequency of pinching his reply was: “The size of a pea is just about right. I take about as much as I can fit between my index finger and thumb. However, 12 times a day just will not do, more like 12 times per hour." (For those keeping score, that is once every 5 minutes or so, which seems excessive).
Vivian Rose of Smith’s, like Frank Muir, never without his snuffbox on television, was a more conventional thirty-pinches-a-day-man.
Some might disagree with his recommendations for beginners. Despite his aversion the addition of menthol, peppermint, eucalyptus and camphor in medicated snuffs are easy to identify but constituent tobaccos and/or essential oils far less so. That’s why it is recommended that beginners start with a (demigros) snuff of this sort: at least that was the advice provided by J&H Wilsons in their book on the manufacture of snuff. However, as we all know, some tyros go straight for the more pungent fin and gros snuffs without trouble.
Regarding S.P (S & P in the 18th century) mentioned in the text, I hope that my research has finally laid to rest the two words the letters refer to.