Uncommonly Common

Sodium Chloride, NaCl, the chloride of sodium: Common Salt. It is comprised of two highly reactive and dangerous substances: an alkali metal, sodium, and chlorine, a halogen whose vapour can kill or maim anyone inhaling it and used most violently in The First World War as a chemical weapon that left a lasting legacy long after the war ended, with the residual fear of its and other chemical substance's re-use in future conflicts carrying over into The Second World War in the form of universal gas protection measures for both combatants and civilians alike. In the form of their combined salt, however, these two fearsome elements are tamed for the good and this most abundant of materials - salt - is central to our lives and our very existence, providing essential body-chemistry-balancing chemicals that ensure that our bodies continue to function normally.

I remember my uncle Edgar, who was a keen amateur chemist and experimenter coming one day into their parlour in the house in which I was born in Rotton Park, and showing me a small white ceramic laboratory dish holding a white, crystalline substance which he said he had made from sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid in his little shed/laboratory in the back yard. Even at the young age I was then, I recognised the two component substances he'd employed to produce the crystals were both pretty nasty in themselves and I declined his suggestion that I taste the result. In typical adult child-winding-up fashion, he spun out the scenario until he finally agreed to taste the stuff himself, upon which I was honour-bound, if you like, to follow suit. "It's just salt..." I declared, which opened the door to a disquisition on the chemistry involved in its manufacture and nature by my uncle. I later got the chance to make my own salt at secondary school in chemistry. More on the subject of this humble but extraordinarily important substance later...