Web Page  No 2328

17^th December 2016

Top Picture: Subterranean air raid shelter

Second Picture: Ginger Beer plant

Third Picture: Pickled Eggs

The Bounty of the Garden

I was lucky in the house I lived in as a child, we had a long garden and in it we have a vast variety of fruit trees and bushes which were all planted many years earlier by a previous owner. Near the house we had a very large cherry tree and I remember a young friend, who later emigrated to Canada, of my father volunteering to go out to pick some cherries for my mother and about half an hour later we discovered him sat on the back step with a tree saw and a large branch he had sawn off because ‘the cherries were easier to pick that way’.

We also had apple trees (cookers and eaters), a pear tree, plum and damson trees and towards the end of the garden a whole row of hazel nut trees. Beyond this the garden had deteriorated into a bit of a wilderness, which was wonderful for playing in, but it still contained soft fruit with gooseberry, black current, red currant and white current bushes flourishing.

My father also had a vegetable patch for green and root vegetables and potatoes but the bounty of the garden had to preserved in some way, this meant bottling, pickling and stacking.

Come the season the kitchen would be awash with Kilner Jars, rubber sealing rings and various pickling spices, luckily we never did keep chicken or ducks so luckily there were no pickled or preserved eggs!

The shelves in the back of the larder, by the end of summer, would be stacked high with bottled apples, rhubarb, plums and soft fruit. I can remember that my folks only preserved one form of vegetable ie pickled onions never beans or courgettes! At this particular time of year I was told that I had to move my ginger beer plant from the shelf onto the floor to make room for the preserved products.

However the exciting thing for me at least was the preservation of whole apples and pears. Our next door neighbour, Harold, had an old solid air raid shelter sunk halfway down the garden. This was not an old Anderson Shelter but a professionally built semi subterranean building complete with solid fuel heater and blast wall. After the end of the war Harold, who also had a lot of fruit trees in his garden, built a lot of wooden racks around the walls of the shelter to store his surplus fruit. There were so many racks that he allowed my parents to store their spare apples and pears in there as well.

There was a gateway between the two gardens and I can remember walking down the concrete steps, opening the wooden door into this dark shelter which smelt of concrete dust and the ‘breathe’ of the fruit individually laid out on the slatted shelves and on newspaper. Every so often we had to go down into the shelter and turn the fruit so it kept in as near perfect condition as possible.

Obviously the fruit did not last for ever and some perished and rotted but we could normally guarantee on having home produced fruit well into the following year.    

This was well before the introduction of frozen and dried food and meals out of packets, we were lucky at home to have the ability to feed ourselves with fresh food.

Keep in touch

Peter

gsseditor@gmail.com

On this Day 17^th  December 1960-1965

On 17/12/1960 the number one single was It's Now Or Never - Elvis Presley and the number one album was Tottenham Hotspur. The top rated TV show was The Army Game (Granada) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68.The big news story of the day was Bootsie & Snudge (Granada).

On 17/12/1961 the number one single was Tower of Strength - Frankie Vaughan and the number one album was Another Black & White Minstrell Show - George Mitchell Minstrels. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 17/12/1962 the number one single was Return to Sender - Elvis Presley and the number one album was West Side Story Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 17/12/1963 the number one single was I Want to Hold Your hand - The Beatles and the number one album was With the Beatles - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 17/12/1964 the number one single was I Feel Fine - The Beatles and the number one album was A Hard Day's Night - Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 17/12/1965 the number one single was Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out - The Beatles and the number one album was The Sound of Music Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.