Letter: ​Marmalade is now a throwback to happy memories of life lessons and values learned around the dinner table

I remember watching my mum putting marmalade on her toast. It was Old Time Irish. It was also thick cut!

Now, back in those days, thick cut did exactly as it said on the tin - the chunks of orange were cut and they were thick!

My mum loved it. I didn’t like biting those big chunks as they were zesty big beastly pieces – I called them fish.

So, another day I got to try Rose’s Lemon and Lime fine cut. I was hooked and to this day I still love that taste.

It’s a throwback to happy days around a table with runny butter on hot toast and the said conserve to top it off.

There were many other nuggets shared around that table. We learned about manners and please and thankyou! Even sorry was taught! Great life lessons and yet very very simple everyday habits.

I think a lot of these basic values have been lost in the modern day selfish rather than selfless approach to daily interactions.

Altruism is an endangered concept in shops, queues, even on the high street we have lost a measure of that caring sharing attitude that our culture was once famous for.

That’s why I like country folk. They still look out for each other.

In Ballycastle the other day I was struck by how people still say hello or good morning… garnished with a smile!

That one little gesture, even two or three times removed, could create the ripple effect which makes someone’s day an awful lot easier than it perhaps would have been.

Just by an act of kindness which costs nothing we each could have such a positive impact down the line. Do unto others is what the good book says… try it .. it’s free!

Dr Jeremy S Laverty, Ballymoney