“We need to gather about a tonne of flowers to see us through the year”
Many teenagers would think it uncool to spend the summer working for their parents, living in a converted horsebox. But when you’re parked next to the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury, with Adele singing, that’s a different proposition. The festival is as famous for its mud as its music, so the Rollett family – Lucy, Andrew and children Alfie, 14, and Lily, 13 – pack wellies along with their homemade elderflower cordials to quench the thirst of fans at Worthy Farm in Somerset.
“Glasto at the end of June is our deadline because the elderflowers have to be picked by then,” Lucy says. “The harvest is short – three to four weeks – during which we’ll gather about a tonne of flowers that will see us through the rest of the year – if the sun is shining, that means 12-hour days. It’s labour intensive, but wonderful to work out in the fresh air.” Family and friends, a team of ten in all, muck in to sell Nurses Cottage Drinks throughout the five-day event, then the charabanc moves on around the festival circuit, which includes Wilderness in Oxfordshire and The Green Man in Wales.
“I feel like a travelling saleswoman at times,” Lucy says. “There’s a lot of work in transporting and setting up, but we love the music. I get terrific feedback from the public and ideas for new drinks to add to the range.” This now includes variations with gooseberries, blackcurrants and Pershore plums. “The horsebox that we live in on the road is quite comfortable as it’s off the ground, so we don’t get wet. There is also real camaraderie among the traders and we help each other out. Once, a vital piece of kit we use to carbonate the drinks broke down, but Tom of Think Drinks managed to magic one up for us. That saved the day – and our livelihood.
“We sell more when it’s hot, but if it pours with rain, we’re all in the same boat.” Or mudbath. The drinks, usually about 500 bottles and glasses at each event, are sold from an ice-cream trailer, which was an ebay purchase. It’s an original 1950s Whitby Morrison, painted bright red when they bought it, but now re-sprayed a tasteful summery green and white. The castellated roof has earned it the nickname of a ‘Lego brick on wheels’.
BOTTLED NOSTALGIA
This is a true cottage industry, which began in Lucy’s kitchen in the Worcestershire village of Little Comberton. The company name was inspired by their previous home just across the road – formerly the district nurse’s residence – and it seemed to fit with the health properties of elderflower, packed with vitamin C. Lucy had always made cordials and pressés from elderflowers and plums, using recipes from her dad, who was a keen home brewer: “He used to make plum jerkum, a local speciality, which he insisted must be stirred with a hazelnut stick.” She also loved foraging and when Alfie was a baby she’d take him up Bredon Hill on her back and fill a basket with edible herbs and plants: “That’s where the idea came from.” With the arrival of Lily, she began to think about combining motherhood with her own small business.
Having previously worked for the Young Farmers’ Clubs as a youth worker, Lucy craved the outdoor life and, since her children seemed to love the elderflower lollies she made, she hit on the idea of bottling the wild ingredient that was so abundant. Crucial to the start-up was her proximity to Pershore College, which offers Food and Drink Production as one of its courses. After a chance conversation there, she was invited to hire the equipment needed for bottling, out of college hours: “I realised I had this great facility on my doorstep, so I really could move up a gear. I bought my first batch of 80 bottles from them for just £100 – a remarkably lowcost way to start off, and one that gave me the confidence to carry on.” A graphic-artist friend designed the label, which is simple and rustic, promising ‘nostalgia in a bottle’. As well as distributing them to friends and family in return for feedback, Lucy then started selling the bottles at local farmers’ markets and other events.
At first, she made the cordial when the children had gone to bed. Now they’re older, she’s able to devote herself to it full time,
heading out with Plum the family dog (a hairy whippet Bedlington cross) to collect her finds in a hessian bag or woven basket, handling the flowers as little as possible. Only lemon and citric acid (a preservative) are added to her recipe.
ELDER AND BETTER
“This year’s tour will be our tenth anniversary one,” says Andrew, who joined Lucy in the business when it grew from a hobby into a going concern. A bricklayer by trade, he also kept sheep and ran a veg-box scheme sourced from his allotment. “I always wanted to be self-sufficient, but realised I couldn’t do everything and get any sleep. We had to streamline the enterprises, and now the drinks business is our main income,” he says.
It’s possible because, Lucy explains, they are frugal. “I forage for furniture as well as plants,” she says. “Everything in the house is salvaged or upcycled, we don’t have foreign holidays and the children have weekend jobs.” Andrew built their large kitchen extension to provide space for further recipe testing, blending it in with the rest of the Victorian house by laying ‘ancient’ flagstones made from modern re-moulded concrete. Lucy markets the business for free using social media through which she announces which events they will be at. Their drinks are also so popular that many of the people who buy them become repeat customers.
Recently, Lucy has started taking cuttings from the best specimens of wild trees and is cultivating them in a south-facing field belonging to her parents: “Picking will be easier when the orchard has matured as we won’t need to go so far afield.” She has also become something of an elderflower connoisseur: “You become sensitive to the scents of different trees and learn what will produce the most flavoursome liquid. If I see a bumblebee, I know I’m on the right track. I want people to drink our cordials and think of orchards and beautiful landscapes.”