This weekend I was talking at Klang Tone Records in Stroud about my book The “S” Word. I grew up outside Stroud in the countryside. In fact my very first memories are there so the place has a particular mystique for me. I took the opportunity to drive past our old house. I wanted to see the vegetable patch where we grew potatoes. I have vivid memories of picking them out of the soil, also happily, of my dad pushing my brother and I around in a wheelbarrow. I think that might have been the most fun thing ever.
These days it looks like some wooden palettes are being stored where we used to grow a little food. This kind of thing was very common in the early seventies. We also grew tomatoes outside the kitchen and I remember being enrolled into shelling broad beans which presumably we had grown.
At the end of the garden there was a magical spot: a very low wall that looked over the farmer Mr. Dangerfield’s yard. Always left to my own devices I would often sit here and look across it. It’s still a cattle farm and I heard the ladies lowing in the barn. No doubt, because it is about to be April, they will soon be letting them out to pasture. See this amazing video of what that looks like.