Katherine Whitehorn/Blackberrying

 Katherine Whitehorn/Blackberrying

 

When I was about 14 my mother decided I needed my horizons broadened. She chose to take the Observer newspaper every Sunday so it was available for me to read. I took to it avidly devouring the contents. At that time in the later 50’s through to very early sixties decolonialisation was a very major topic. The Observer with its liberal approach ( although more middle of the road then than now ) thoroughly reported the traumas associated.  There was much else besides including the windy rhetoric of the Bandung conference. The tragedy of Nehru who led  independent India into economic stagnation was probably not reported as it deserved because Nehru was still seen as something of a hero.

My father ( and hence the family ) took the Sunday Express. At the time part of the Beaverbrook press the Express group with rare idiosyncratic exceptions was rabidly right wing. My mother was , I think, concerned I might pick up opinions from the Express and hence took the decision to buy the Observer regularly. With such a tight family budget this was a brave decision.

Katherine Whitehorn began a weekly column in the Observer in 1960 and this was a hit with us from the beginning. The column wasn’t political but more of a witty and wise commentary on life not just on current events. Later in the 60’s mother bought a book of collected columns entitled “Only on Sundays”. As I had left home and she felt no longer justified in buying the Observer this was a partial replacement. The book was remaindered and cheap so she felt justified in its purchase. Katherine Whitehorn didn’t aggressively espouse female liberation but just by living and writing as she did showed women’s equality.

As young men do I played the “who would  you like to be cast away on a desert island with” along with my fellows.. Rather than choosing say Marilyn Monroe with obvious sexual allure I would nominate Katherine Whitehorn. She was attractive and apparently vivacious but I felt she would be a wise and empathetic companion.

For many years I forgot all about her except that I enjoyed the books of Gavin Lyall who I knew was her husband. I next encountered her column in 1994 when I was recovering from a stroke. I was surprised to see she was still writing for the Observer. Commenting on the story Daddy Long Legs she remarks on the heroine who says “ I shall marry an undertaker and be a help to him in his work”

Later Katherine wrote for Saga magazine. While still moderately entertaining these columns lacked the sparkle of her earlier work. Sadly she contracted Alzheimer’s and was living in a care home in 2018.

Addendum

Since I wrote the above I’ve found our copy of “Only on Sundays”. Still wise and funny ( I’m chuckling about the slob stapling his braces to his trouser).. Inevitably some references which were well known at the time would be unknown today. It’s a tribute of age that I understand lots.

Blackberrying

When I’m picking blackberries in my garden I’m always reminded of blackberry picking with my mother .when I was a boy. Mother loved blackberrying with an almost girlish enthusiasm. In fact she would sometimes say how she had enjoyed it when she was a girl. Like us at the time she had lived out in the country.

Blackberrying was a fairly serious business demanding preparation. She would dress with an old mac over her clothes so that thorns were not a problem either to her or her clothes.. She would carry an old fashioned wooden walking stick used to hook branches otherwise just out of reach. Stout wellington boots completed the ensemble.

Having lived in the same house for a fairly long time she had a good idea where the best spots for picking were. This didn’t preclude extra reconnaissance as other places arose. One favourite spot was just at the end of our garden. The garden bordered on open fields and just over our garden fence was a thicket of brambles. I wonder now whether they had been planted in the twenties when the house was new. Certainly by the forties the thicket had grown to many feet in thickness and about man height. One big advantage was that the ripening could be watched easily although the most fruit grew on the opposite side from or rear fence so had to be picked from the field..

Picking blackberries is a fairly laborious business. I was co-opted into helping sometimes- a task I didn’t enjoy. I would soon whinge that I had had enough.. I’ve often thought that one reason why mother enjoyed it so much was that it appealed to her sense of thriftiness. Natures bounty, there for the gathering.

The culmination was the making of blackberry and apple or rhubarb and blackberry pies.. I can remember them now shaped like a Cornish pasty with tasty pastry surrounding a succulent fruity filling. It was very much my favourite dessert; fresh from the oven and piping hot- yummy. In those pre freezing days this was only possible for a few weeks a year but made for a very enjoyable period.