The allotments

Allotment owning is a family institution. Copthorne's allotments were established in 193? on a piece of land in between the Hunter's Moon Pub and the Convent, opposite to the football club. We paid fees to Burstow Parish Council - a really low amount for a fertile strip of land that supplemented all the vegetables grown in back gardens.

My father began to work a plot of land in the village allotment site during the war (?); when he died, my mother took this over, but in effect I did most of the heavy work, made worse by being right at the back of the field and furthest from the water pump! She was a well known sight, pushing her wheelbarrow along Copthorne Bank, laden with tools or flowers. I bought a trailer to cope with the surplus!

My brother had the plot up from ours, and my sister another, nearer the pump. On some summer evenings, we would all be found there, growing beans, dahlias and most particularly sweet peas. My daughter resented every minute being there as there were stinging nettles, no loos (round the back of the bonfire), dirt and boredom. But whilst my back could cope, and when there wasn't a drought I enjoyed working the land, and selling the surplus back at our house in another village, taking several hundred pounds each summer - and this before organic vegetables were all the rage. My mother also used to sell beans - a pound for a pound - all over the front gate!