大象传媒

My grandfather on my mother's side was Walter ('Walt') Pankhurst (1892-1952), a chargehand at Manfield's shoe factory. During the war, he and my grandmother lived in Abington, having moved to Wheatfield Road South from Dover Street at some time around the start of the war.
He had had an allotment for many years, on which he grew vegetables and, in particular, marrows. He was very proud of his marrows, and often gave them away. I am sure there were too many for the immediate family to eat.
He died when I was five, but I remember distinctly over at least a couple of summers being shown marrows with my first name on them. I was fascinated by this evidence of the extraordinary powers of my grandfather, who was also no mean hand at card tricks and other 'magic' that fooled a five-year-old. Because of the magic, I also remember his nicotine-stained fingers. He was a heavy smoker, but in those days that was nothing out of the ordinary. He had only his thumb and two fingers on his right hand, the other fingers having been lost to a Turkish bullet in the Great War.
My father disliked marrow and my mother never cooked it at our house. Some years later, a neighbour gave her a marrow and when I saw it lying on the worktop in the kitchen I had my own Proustian moment when memories of my grandfather and his tricks flooded back. I asked her then about my name on the marrows.
The answer was rather a let-down but I suppose it was obvious. He scratched my name with a bodkin on the very young marrow, and as it grew, the name grew with it and became a large printed word on the side of the mature marrow. I was his first grandchild and I suppose his trick with my name was evidence of grandfatherly pride. He did not live to see any of his other grandchildren.
What has this to do with the war? The answer is, my grandfather's marrows were disappearing from the allotment. This had never happened before the war but it started in the dark days of 1940 or 1941. To begin with, he thought he might have miscounted, but after a time it became undeniable that they were being stolen. My grandfather was prepared to Dig for Victory but he was, to use his expression, "blowed if he was going to provide for them as don't grow it thisselves" (said my mother). I suppose he could have mounted an all-night vigil every night, but that must have seemed excessive for the sake of one marrow every few days. In the event, a friend and fellow marrow fancier showed him the trick of writing on the young marrow. After harvesting all the marrows that had reached a reasonable size, he inscribed the little ones that were left, and over the next few days continued to do so as new growths reached a certain size. His friend had said he would have to lose one more marrow.
And so it transpired. Two or three weeks later, when the marrows had swelled, he noticed that the biggest one had disappeared. Presumably the perpetrator pinched it after dark, took it home, and was embarrassed in front of his family when the inscription was seen on it.
My grandfather never lost another marrow.
I do not know where his allotment was, but when I went to his house and he was out, my grandmother would always say he was "down the lotment". Everyone spoke of "a lotment", "the lotment", never "an allotment" or "the allotment". I have a memory of having allotments in Billing Road pointed out to me - but that may be a false memory. Certainly, wherever it was, he would cycle there. It was being drenched in a summer storm while cycling home that brought on the pneumonia that swiftly killed him, but from a modern perspective, I cannot help thinking all those fags must have taken their toll.

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