Summer on a plate

Strawberry season is one of life’s great pleasures. And if you pick your own, they taste even better

When I was about eight or nine, my brothers and I were packed off to an old auntie in Coupar Angus, where my father was from. It was there I had my first taste of a strawberry. We spent two blissful weeks in berry drills on a farm on the outskirts of the village.

We were picked up in a dark blue Transit van with another couple of families to be taken to the farm, where the smell of sweet fruit hit me for the first time. A tractor and bogie was waiting to take us to our field along with hampers of warm, diluted squash and sandwiches fit for a king. These were not the kind of sandwiches made hurriedly for a school packed lunch. They were Auntie Alison’s sandwiches of egg mayo, rolls with proper ham and tomato, jeelie pieces, sardines, and crisps. We were allowed crisps! My brothers and I were in heaven, and loved being outside in the sun for as long as it shone.

I also ate a lot of those sweet, delicious strawberries. They were grown on the ground then and not under plastic as they are now. But as we all know, it was always warmer and sunnier when we were young. I’ll never forget the taste of my first strawberry. The flavour was so intense it felt unnatural somehow. How could something be so vibrant, stunningly sweet and fresh?

It was the first time I had a job and was paid for doing something. I earned my first £ 10 note there on that farm and cherished it. The way we were paid was brilliant: you brought your punnets of picked berries to the farmer at the bogie. The berries were weighed, and you were paid by the pound. It was a great insight into basic economics.