The strawberries are magnificent this year, they seem very abundant and quite reasonably priced. They are quite small but absolutely full of flavour – maybe because it’s been so dry they haven’t grown to the usual size, and this has intensified the taste. I’ve noticed that although we’ve bought large punnets, there hasn’t been the usual deterioration in fruit, I don’t think any have gone mouldy, and few have been squishy and soft.
I like them on their own – when we were children we had them sprinkled with sugar and a spoonful of tinned cream. Yes, tinned cream! At home we had evaporated milk and we had tinned cream, but we never had condensed milk for some reason. Was it more expensive (our family was on a tight budget) or did my parents not like it, or was it what they had when they were growing up with their families? These days fresh cream of all sorts is easily available and relativity cheap, and although you can still buy evaporated and condensed milk, I think they would only be used in recipes – or maybe people do still pour them over desserts and puddings.
Back to strawberries, living in Somerset we are in the heart of the strawberry growing areas of the country. My family first moved to the west country when I was sixteen, and my sister, fourteen. In those days many if not most of the strawberries were hand-picked, and most of the workforce was young people, students, women who weren’t in other employment. My mum at that point wasn’t working, and she would drive us over to the strawberry fields near Cheddar and we’d be set to work with trugs (flat baskets) to pick the fruit. The bushes then were low to the ground so we had to squat or bend over, not allowed to kneel in case we damaged the plants. I found it agonising with my chunky legs, and I’m sure we all had back-ache and cramps, but we were earning a little money, doing something different in the long school holidays, and doing it together.
We got into conversation with the other pickers who were very similar to us – I don’t remember many or any lads, just girls and women. One woman I remember in particular, even what she looked like; she was older than mum so maybe fifties or sixties, with a long, sallow face and long straggly brown/grey hair pulled back loosely and tied low on he neck. She was very thin, and I think she was quite tall, and wearing old clothes as we all were – strawberries are good at staining! She spoke in a very cultured voice, not the typical person to be strawberry picking. She was very pleasant and friendly. I’m not sure how often we went strawberry picking, I can’t remember if it was a couple of times, or more often, but this lady always seemed to be near or with us.
I shall call her Mrs Gray, as I’m not sure even if we knew her name. We chatted as we picked, more mum and Mrs Gray than us girls, but we were all side by side so the conversation was shared. Did Mrs Gray come from Austria? I don’t know why I suddenly think that, maybe as well as a posh accent she had a slightly foreign accent. I don’t remember her telling us anything about her life except one really shocking thing, which no doubt rendered us speechless.
Mrs Gray told us that not long before we were there in the strawberry field, her house was burnt down. It was burnt down completely, right to the ground, nothing was salvaged or saved from the flames. She said she, or maybe they, were left literally with just the clothes they stood up in. I don’t know, but I have the feeling now, that the fire had been recent to when she was telling us. I think she said they were living in a small flat now and were beginning to get the belongings they needed (did she say friends and strangers kindly donated stuff, their generosity making her cry?) but there were odd things, everyday things, which she suddenly realised she hadn’t got. She was almost angry and very upset when she told us when it had particularly impacted.
“I needed a needle to repair something, just a needle, an ordinary needle, and I hadn’t got any!” Mrs Gray exclaimed. “The fire had taken everything, even down to a needle.”
I have no idea why that has stuck in my mind, but even after all those years, it’s still a vivid memory from the strawberry field.
My featured image is of the Lion Rock in Cheddar – for some reason I have no images of strawberries!
Lois Elsden 