Beanz Meanz Cleanz Gutz

Take a good look right into the depths of your kitchen cupboards.

If you have resided in the same place for some years or even if you have moved house I can guarantee that at least one tin or can of something old will have followed you and will now be waiting to see the light of day again.

My parents have a traditional pantry, a proper north facing, single brick wall and walk in type which can maintain an all year round temperature which would keep a permafrost infused woolly mammoth rigid and avoiding a large ginger coloured puddle of prehistoric thaw. This is the perfect atmosphere for storage of a canned good which has been handed down over a few generations. Pride of place in my parents cool vault was a tin, slightly corroded on the crimped edges, of whole chestnuts in brine. This pre-dated any ' Use By' labelling and from the appearance of the artwork was certainly a purchase in the interwar or immediate post war period. It never formed an ingredient for stuffing at an austere Christmas dinner, perhaps considered too much of a luxury at a time when rationing and coupons were still in place.

I throw down a challenge for you to make a brave foray into either your kitchen cupboards, medecine chest or tool shed to see if you have unwittingly harboured a tin of Bile Beans. I include the latter search grid because old tins make perfect storage for nuts, bolts, washers and other Man Bits.

Every time I drive into York to find a parking space the inner ring road takes me, usually involuntarily, along the base of the earthworks for the Roman Walls on the eastern side of the historic central area. There is a bit of a Grand Prix jockeying for position near to Sainsbury's as the traffic lights delay that inevitable and undignified rush for the correct lane to go up Lord Mayors Walk rather than taking, in error, the right hand lane which only sends you on another lap of the infuriatingly complicated road system.

With the Monk Bar Gate just in sight on the left there is a wonderful direct view of the gable end wall of 18 Lord Mayors Walk.

This has what can be referred to as a 'Ghost sign'- the part restored but still rather faded wording of an advertisement for Nightly Bile Beans. Rather than the modern equivalent of a timber hoarding which can be pasted and re-pasted with digitally reproduced posters this is painted directly onto the late Georgian or early Victorian brickwork. There is a small 4-paned attic room window high up. It is a bit like that scene in From Russia With Love where the Russian assassin tries to make his escape through the mouth of large billboard poster under the scrutiny of James Bond.  The sign has done well to survive on a heat exposed and colour fading south facing wall although was repainted, sympathetically and skillfully in 1986. This date was significant in that the main manufacturer, Fisons, phased out the product and agreed to fund the restoration for posterity.

The full wording, in three font styles, and below the product name bears the very broad claim that Bile Beans  "keep you healthy, bright eyed and slim". This is the sort of thing that BBC TV Watchdog would thoroughly investigate and hope to expose as they have in the past for wonder slimming pills, vitamins and other quack type treatments. In effect the product is a laxative. The ingredients  included aloin extract, cardamom, peppermint oil and wheat flour, all encased in a black gelatine coating. It was marketed as being purely vegetable although there was a real danger of actually becoming one given the much later declaration of aloin extract as unsafe because of ( undisclosed) side effects.

Origins are more difficult to establish because there will have been hand me down, old mother and family remedies working on the same principles for centuries if not millenia but not making it into a commercial entity. An ancient Aboriginal compound was alluded to by one of the main producers from 1899 but had to be declared as false in the Courts in 1905 when cross examined in a copyright case. There is a reference in an Australian newspaper from 1898 to  Bile Beans being a long established product from Michigan, USA which further confuses accurate dating.

Slick advertising in the 1930's appealing, in particular, to the female market made Bile Beans the brand leader in its sector. It continued to make claims on weight loss, easing female complaints and weakness, sallow complexions, headache and impure blood with glossy campaigns of busty, outdoor types or women in the armed forces.It must have been a major influence on the ad campaigns of today for tampons and sanitary towels which are very exciting.

The post war period saw a more functional campaign for sales and quite a focus on Bile Beans as a remedy for biliousness,constipation, liver, stomach and bowel problems and pimples. This appears to reflect a rather stodgy dietary base and a Public Health and NHS fascination with being regular.

The product continued until Fisons flushed it out of their product range in the 1980's. The restored painted advertisement on 18 Lord Mayors Walk, York is but one of a few that have survived . Every urban area in the UK will have good examples of products, services and company names but with their days numbered under the threat of clearance and road building schemes, demolition of the old industrial sites and enthusiastic DIY'ers with a tub of Dulux Weathershield Exterior paint.

It is with some irony that the process of gentrification may be the biggest threat. The new self styled urbane owners of a renovated and now contemporary town house in a former working class or manufacturing part of a City just do not want to be reminded about their bowel movements, however natural and important to overall health they are, by some old wording on their gable end or, heaven forbid, in their direct sight with no relevance to their busy and active lives.