The holiday that changed me ‘I’d never done manual labour’

Picking asparagus in Suffolk during lockdown gave actress Emily Head a fresh perspective on life

Last March, my boyfriend and I took a holiday to my late grandmother’s cottage in Suffolk, just before I was set to film The Syndicate in Yorkshire. We arrived there with just enough clothes for a week’s holiday, and then lockdown happened.

I hadn’t visited since my grandmother passed away 10 years earlier; the thought of it had been too difficult. There were so many memories of summers there with mum, dad [the actor Anthony Head] and my sister Daisy. It’s a dinky cottage in a village with a beautiful little garden and we’d row on the lake in Thorpeness, take walks in the reed-filled Snape Marshes and wander around Framlingham Castle. My grandmother always thought I’d be bored but I absolutely loved imagining what it was like there centuries ago.

When my grandmother passed, Mum renovated the cottage and used it as a writer’s retreat. Ultimately what made me want to go back was that I wanted to share it with my boyfriend.

Of course, what I didn’t know at that point was that I was actually going to live there. A few days after we arrived, we were locked down, filming of The Syndicate was called off and my boyfriend, a restaurant manager, was furloughed. It forced me to get past the discomfort because I had to make a life for myself there. It was a chance to work through the sadness, honour the memories and create some new ones.

That period of early lockdown was so difficult for everyone with the fear of the unknown. We wanted to do something, and kept seeing news reports about local farmers needing people to work. We found one who said “Come tomorrow, 6am, bring gloves”. It would give us a focus, a relief, a chance to let the enormity of Covid drift away in the field.

We were put to work picking asparagus. I’d never done manual labour before; I worked in a pub for a few months when I was 18 and then got the Inbetweeners role, so I’d never done anything other than act. I had no idea what back-breaking work it was but I surprised myself with how I could do it, how I could push myself.

And I learnt a lot about asparagus. It grows straight up out of the ground and is planted in long rows. You cut the spear 3cm beneath the soil and it has to be picked by hand – it grows so quickly and has to be picked as soon as it’s ready or it starts to flower and then you can’t eat it. You can only tell that by eye.

It’s amazing how fast it grows – we’d do a field, go off and do another one, come back and it would be ready again. We’d pick crates and crates every day, and picking doesn’t stop if it rains. We’d be out there in hail, downpours and extreme heat. It was brutal. But we were surrounded by lovely countryside and there were days when I’d be weeding in the fields, overlooking the river in sunshine and think “Yeah, there are much

worse places to be”.

I’m used to being surrounded by actors, but there were people from all walks of life there. Construction workers, students, chefs, people who worked on boats and told us tales about wild trips around the world. After a month, a guy who had taught me how to pick was like: “Oi, is it true you’re on the telly? I love The Inbetweeners, my missus loves Emmerdale, I can’t believe you never told me!”

It wasn’t the kind of holiday I’d had before. Growing up in an acting family, holidays would be in LA, hanging out in my dad’s trailer. So I’m not a particularly outdoorsy person and if I’d thought about working on a farm too much I’d have talked myself out of it.

But I learnt how important it is to live in the now, to be impulsive, to say “yes” to things because the experience you’ll get is so far beyond what you have if you stay in your comfort zone. It taught me not to stress about things I have no control over. At work I’d normally think, “How did that scene go, what could I have done differently?” but on the farm I didn’t spend my evenings worrying about what the next day would bring – the crop was picked and that was that. You can’t change what you did, so why worry about it? Let it go. I’ve taken that into my acting life.

When we got to film The Syndicate at the end of last year, after we did a scene we’d move on and I’d think, “OK, everyone was happy, let that be.” It’s been liberating.

We stayed in Suffolk for six months. It was really unexpected but the experience had so many layers. By the end, I felt a sense of peace and completeness and my outlook on life had changed. And I know that my grandmother would have been so proud of me for doing it.

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Heading to Suffolk? Read all our advice in one place, from the best hotels, restaurants and bars to weekend itineraries: telegraph. co.uk/tt-suffolk

Kay Mellor’s The Syndicate is on BBC One on Tuesday, at 9pm

INSPIRED

Travel within the UK is currently subject to restrictions. See Page 3

Time to reflect: Emily Head, below left, went to Suffolk for a week and ended up staying for a month