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23/09/03

MY CHILDHOOD MEMORIES OF AN ALLOTMENT
By Brenda Millward

I was born in 1936; I can’t remember how old I was when my younger brother and me started going with our dad to his allotment. It was about two miles from where we lived in Birmingham, a long walk for little legs. I think it must have always been sunny, as I only remember it with fun.

Everyone who had an allotment on the ‘Dingalls’ was always friendly and we always had lots of children to play with, that’s not to say we did not work, we were the ‘gofers’ as the water was some distant away.

Even now one incident stays in my mind. Dad was getting the ground ready for planting and he asked me to get some twigs to tie the string to so he could have straight lines. I broke them off a willow tree. Some weeks later when we went down the twigs had sprouted. To a little girl who thought she had put dead twigs in the ground it was a miracle!

Soon our hard work paid off. Little shoots started to sprout and we could not get down there fast enough to see how the vegetables and flowers were getting on.

It was first time that dad had grown vegetables but there were always the other gardeners who gave advice. It was lovely to sit in the sun, dad with his flask of tea, and the kids with lemonade and a bag of crisps, as we listened to the men talking. Their flow of words drifted over us as we watched the butterflies, ladybirds, and listened to the crickets. What peaceful memories.

It was the first harvest of vegetables. What excitement! With a bag of vegetables and some flowers we could not get home to mum fast enough. Oh blissful days! We used to swap things with the other gardeners so there was always something different. What happy days and yes there was a war going on!

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