Marees’s Musings

MATCHMAKING

Matchmaking? No doubt you readers are already jumping to conclusions, but rest assured, it’s not what you’re thinking. I was delighted to read Lyle Griffith’s article in our May’s Star about the shipwreck of the General Grant on the Auckland Islands, and the vital part just one match played in the crew’s survival.

So … matches. I’ve never given their manufacture a second thought. Have you? Like sardines, I always have a box or two on hand, and also like the sardine can, this reveals much. There’s the trade name BEEHIVE with a stylised pic; contents: 90 safety – phew! – matches; 50mm long – and super skinny at 2mm wide [I measured one]. So far, nothing strange. However, I didn’t know these ones were made in Sweden, so they’ve travelled far. Weirdly, they’re environmentally friendly with certifications from the Forest Stewardship Council and the Rainforest Alliance. I discovered ‘safety’ ones only work when struck on the chemicals on the side of the box … not on the sole of your shoe or the footpath.

Each one is a wooden stick with a red head, right? But it’s not that simple. Only white pine is used because it’s able to absorb the ammonium phosphate they’re soaked in to stop the whole match burning, and rigid so it doesn’t snap into bits. Logs are peeled to make veneer strips which are then chopped into millions of matchsticks; the tips are dipped in hot wax and then into a mix of chemicals. I discovered that it’s the side of the box, not the match head which contains the red phosphorus. Striking the match turns this into white phosphorus which reacts with the match head stuff, and success! A flame.

So why is white phosphorus not used? Turns out it’s highly toxic, and the poor match factory workers ended up with ‘phossy jaw’. This sounds nasty, and was. In 1888 the first ‘matchmaking machine’ (cute!) was patented and today’s machines  make as many as ten million matches in eight hours, with only a few monitors managing operations. My maths makes that around 21000 every minute. Much better.

And now a childhood memory to share: crying over Hans Andersen’s 1848 story ‘The Little Match Girl’. Nameless, this child of poor parents is sent out onto the streets to sell matches. It’s New Year’s Eve, freezing, and she is barefoot. One slipper is simply missing and a boy has pinched the other. That’s all I recall, so maybe it didn’t end well. Was it true? Possibly, as it was loosely based on an incident that happened to Andersen’s mother, and inspired by a drawing he had seen.

Are matches becoming a thing of the past? Certainly we use them less than before. Today there’s disposable lighters, less smokers and automatic lighting devices for gas. Not nearly as charming, though. So we might have to say goodbye to matchmaking – the practical version, that is. As for the other sort: maybe a story for another day.