Sweet memories of youth

Perhaps Borderers have a very sweet tooth – or maybe it was just my uncle – for I remember getting minty Hawick Balls and Moffat toffee, too

Tattie rogueing is in full swing right now. This odd-sounding activity is essential to ensure potatoes being grown as seed for next year’s crop are disease free and free of “rogue” or unwanted varieties from the intended crop.

A crop that’s going to be sold as seed must be authentic throughout and free of adulteration. Pairs of young men, and no doubt young women too, can be seen walking up and down the tattie dreels with forks over their shoulders digging out any offending plants.

Next time you drive past a tattie field take a moment to look at the drills, straight as a die up and down the field regardless of its contours. Nowadays ploughing relies on GPS – Global Positioning System – a satellite-based navigation aid which directs and maintains the line of ploughing, almost making the driver redundant. It’s so reliable the driver can take his hands off the steering wheel and sit and read his Courier.

I met a young man from near Jedburgh who was visiting up here – there was a girlfriend involved, of course. I wondered if they still made Jethart snails and to my great surprise he said he’d never heard of them.

When I was at school near Edinburgh one of my Loanhead uncles’ treats was to bring me tins of Jethart snails from Jedburgh. It sounds as though they may no longer be made, but they were sticky boilings – boiled sugar sweeties in the shape of snails that took ages to sook until they were all gone.

Perhaps Borderers have a very sweet tooth – or maybe it was just my uncle – for I remember getting minty Hawick Balls and Moffat toffee, too. And there were Berwick Cockles – soft, creamy sweeties made in the shape of cockleshells. Are they still made or have they all fallen victim to modern mass production?

The next time we’re down at Peebles visiting son James and his family I’ll have to take myself off on a sweetie hunt. And if worst comes to the worst I’ll buy a Selkirk Bannock, a cholesterol treat I find hard to resist and best eaten with a generous spread of salt butter thick enough to see the tooth marks.

Back home, I track the season through the colours of the countryside. Just now the bright rose-purple flowers of tall rosebay willowherb dominate roadside verges and wood clearings. It’s bonny enough in bloom but it’s an invasive weed whose seeds are carried on wind-blown feathery sails and it can be a nightmare to eradicate if it gets a hold in your garden. Much more attractive is the stunning, vibrant bloom, like a blue flush, of phacelia which seems almost to bounce off the land. Farmers grow it as a green manure. Once the flowers and foliage die back they are ploughed into the ground to provide an organic answer to artificial fertilisers, promoting healthy soil and healthy crops. Its nectarrich flowers attract bees, hoverflies, lacewings and other pollinators which are essential for successful crops and good news for the farmer. Aphids, on the other hand, are destructive agricultural pests and consequently bad news. But hoverflies feed on aphids, acting as gratuitous biological pest controllers, which would seem to make good economical as well as agricultural sense. It sounds like something of an ecological win-win crop.

Inka came home with a tick on his head, picked up on a walk. Ticks appear year-round but they are more common in the summer months. They should be dealt with as soon as they appear. In the past I’ve used the old remedies of dabbing the offending blood-sucking bug with turpentine or rubbing margarine on it but now there are proprietary tick removers on the market. But if you have any doubts take your dog to the vet.

Often I tell people they’ll see so much more if they look up when they are out in the country, and not to wander along with their eyes on the ground looking for thruppeny bits that aren’t there. Walking home with Inka, what seemed a familiar shape high up on the trunk of an oak tree caught my eye. As I thought, it was a squirrel clinging motionless, waiting for the danger to pass. As soon as I moved to get a better look it was off to the topmost branches.

I watched it run out along the branches and leap into the neighbouring tree and disappear. It’s brief glimpses like this of nature in its element that add such pleasure to walks with my dog – and I’d have missed it if I’d been looking for thruppeny bits.

Picture: Angus Whitson A splendid field of tatties in full flower and growing in drills, straight as a die up and down the field.