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Patricia Nicol

I WISH I had got to Wimbledon and eaten strawberries and cream there. Apparently, 1.92 million strawberries were bought in for the fortnight’s festival of tennis.

Strawberries and cream have been part of Wimbledon’s offering since the inaugural 1877 Championships. But the refreshing treat’s association with racquet sports goes back further: Cardinal Wolsey apparently served it to tennisplaying guests in 1509. Somehow, despite the surging cost of food, the price of £2.50 for a punnet of ten has been held since 2010.

The fruit that epitomises an English summer also has a sweet spot in literature. In Thomas Hardy’s Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, working-class innocent Tess is sent to visit her rich distant relatives to ask for financial assistance. There, she encounters the architect of her downfall, the louche Alec d’Urberville. Showing her around the gardens of his grand house, he festoons her with roses and feeds her fruit. ‘Selecting a specially fine product of the “British Queen” variety, he stood up and held it by the stem to her mouth.

‘“No — no!” she said quickly, putting her fingers between his hand and her lips. “I would rather take it in my own hand.”

‘“Nonsense!” he insisted; and in a slight distress she parted her lips and took it in.’ This scene prefigures her seduction and ‘fall’.

A less sinister fruity scene is described in H.E. Bates’s The Darling Buds Of May. On a blisteringly hot day, tax-inspector Cedric Charlton joins the merry Larkins, strawberry picking. As low, unskilled worker, Mr Charlton is soon moved on to the weighing room, where he gets in a jam with several female pickers.

In The Strawberry Thief by Joanne Harris, Rosette is bequeathed a strawberry wood. The gift comes from Narcisse, the greengrocer, whose nickname for Rosette had been ‘my little strawberry thief’, ever since he caught her helping herself from his patch. William Morris’s famous Strawberry Thief design is also a motif revisited in the book.

Whether you got to Wimbledon, watched at home or ignored it, enjoy this strawberry season.