The Curmudgeon

There was also the usual influx of visitors, with every room in the Beggars' Arms taken, the tiny caravan site full and the confetti crocodiles of brightly dressed ramblers winding across the face of Tup Fell.

But we locals were also affected by a sense of heartfelt relief that, in turn, led to not a little anger.

Jetset, you see, was cured - not that he was ever seriously ill. But he had come back from one of his jaunts in the Far East with a rather severe cold and had passed through both Hong Kong and Singapore.

Unlike the Chinese doctor who spread SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) from China by flying to Hong Kong when he already had the disease, Jetset had chosen to isolate himself at home until any possible danger had passed.

The Doc called in several consultants, who did lots of tests, and Jetset was formally declared a disease-free area on Maundy Thursday. This led to something of a celebration in the Beggars' Arms that evening.

Whether or not his enthusiastic welcome home was because we all felt pleased for him, or whether we were simply relieved that the village had not been exposed to a new plague, is hard to tell - probably a bit of both.

Jetset was obviously somewhat touched by his reception, a feeling he reciprocated by buying lots of rounds, which made him even more popular. He did, however, tell a story which caused some tempers to bristle.

As a regular globetrotter in search of cheap textiles to import to Britain, Jetset has always been a keen student of any reports he can find on tropical diseases.

He has had more needles stuck into him than an antique pincushion yet, as he explained later in the evening, he regularly catches cold on long flights because, at night, the airlines turn down the heating - to save fuel.

But, he added more seriously, they have also taken a sinister advantage of the now worldwide ban on smoking aboard airliners - and that, he believes, could have devastating effects on world health.

One of the consultants who had examined him, he said, had asked dozens of questions about the air conditioning aboard the various planes he had used in South East Asia. Puzzled, but not totally ignorant of the subject, Jetset had asked him the reason behind this concerned interest.

Jetset was told that there was growing concern amongst epidemiologists throughout the West about the rapid spread of disease from the Third World.

"Apparently, it has been getting worse since the airlines banned smoking. When people smoked, the plane's air-conditioning system changed the air in the cabins every few minutes - the smoke was pumped out into the stratosphere in seconds," explained Jetset.

"With smoking banned, they turned the air conditioning down so that the air is re-circulated time and time again before being pumped out."

But, we asked, why should they do this?. Jetset, no mean slouch at business himself, shrugged and smiled: "Money of course. Air conditioning burns up a few extra gallons of fuel. Turn it off and that goes on the bottom line."

In other words, we in Beggarsdale might have been hit by the worst plague since the Black Death - or at least the 1919 flu epidemic - to put a few cents or pence on the airlines' dividend payments. Not a very Christian thought that, for Easter.

* The Curmudgeon is a satirical column based on a fictitious character in a mythical village.