When my sisters and I were girls, our maternal grandmother,
Nellie, taught us the ancient country art of foraging. (We were
working class Northerners in the 1960s - we had to make our
own fun!) It began in August when the winberries * ripened and
great swathes of the moors surrounding our cotton-mill town turned
the deep purplish-blue of a fresh bruise. Off we'd set, we four
Lancashire lasses aged between six and sixty, to gather in the
tiny, sweet berries that made pies with a flavour all of their own.
No freezers in those days, just a mass baking and a general
sharing-out among the neighbours who would all reciprocate days
later.
Then came plums, damsons, greengages and sloes, all to be baked,
bottled and fermented. In late September our stained and scarred
fingers would carry home bags full of blackberries. Apples and
pears were harder - we had to rely on adventurous boys scrumping
our town's posher gardens - then came the nuts as the autumn
colours deepened.
Forty years later, I still can't see fruit ripening on a tree or
bush without that primitive pull in my gut telling me to gather it
in, preserve it in ice or sugar, hoard it away because the winter
is coming and you never, ever know.
My son doesn't really get it yet. And my husband, despite being
a country boy himself, certainly doesn't, but this week I have two
partners in crime. My parents are staying with us for a few days
and completely share my love of going out and finding our own food.
We've even done a bit of scrumping. The damsons currently in my
freezer were definitely growing in someone's garden.
Foraging is one of the reasons I love this time of year so much.
Another is that in these first few days of September nature seems
to give up her very best. We still have the summer's warmth, late
flowers in the gardens, the soft golden light, but we also have
berries, shining like jewels in the hedgerows, trees so laden down
with fruit their branches scrape the ground and daily reminders
that, no matter how badly we treat her, our mother planet has
endless patience, infinite forgiveness and like a kind and
benevolent parent, will always take care of us.
And so I pick blackberries and I remember my grandmother Nellie,
whose enthusiasm for life I so much wish I'd inherited and I think
of her aunt, Alice, a sprightly lady of 80+ who often used to
forage with us and who was never without a story - most of them
pure invention although she swore blind they were true. Maybe I
inherited a thing or two from her!
September is also the month when I send my son off to school, in
his crisp and clean new uniform, and settle myself down to gather
in the ideas that have been drifting around for the last few
months, preserve them on paper (OK, on the hard-drive, but it
doesn't sound so lyrical) and hope the harvest is a good one.
And maybe one day, if we can learn to look after our home planet
the way she looks after us, I will have grown grandchildren who
will remember me as the odd granny, who told scary stories, and who
made the most wonderful jam.
* East Lancashire name for the fruit more commonly known as the
bilberry and, in recent years, the blueberry.