Open Writing

During the 1940s, when our spirits were low, Mother would take us out to a farm for tea on a Sunday afternoon.

We would pile into our Morris 8, and Mother would drive us out to Mrs Garroway’s farm, up in the hills near Consett, where we would have a boiled egg each, some home-made bread with farm butter, then some preserved pears with another slice of bread and butter - and a cup of tea. The farm butter would always be very salty.

My job that afternoon would be to collect the eggs from the free range chickens. Some of these birds were crafty and laid their eggs in secret places. You had to search for them.

Then I would watch the farm hind milk the little jersey cow. This task would be observed by the farm cat. The hind would squirt a jet of warm milk, straight from the cow to the cat, who didn’t seem to mind the drenching. She would wipe off the milk with her paw, then lick the paw clean.

Mrs Garroway would fill an old fashioned bottle with the warm milk and we would take it home. Those outings were a great pleasure to me as a little boy. A boiled egg, with bread and butter, and some preserved pears – what a wonderful meal. Things were different then.

In recent years, I’d eat five steaks a week. No wonder I got arthritis in my hip. I can’t remember when I last ate a boiled egg. And as for milk, fresh from the cow, I get it homogenized from the supermarket. It doesn’t taste anything like the milk from that little jersey cow..

I seem to remember my Mother paying Mrs Garroway half a crown as the price of the tea for my brother and me. Mother didn’t eat there. A meal for one and threepence each – can you believe that?

I couldn’t buy a meal like that now, offering that kind of enjoyment. Something has changed – me.