We range in age from five to fifteen, twenty or more of us huddled in the corner of the field, sheltering against the drystone wall. It's mid-October, cold and damp. Featureless grey clouds are draped across the hillside like a wet dishrag. We hear the men approaching with Blossom and Flicker, a beautiful pair of massive Belgian shire horses. They appear out of the mist, tossing their heads, rattling their harnesses, snorting flumes of steam into the frosty air.
They're eager to work. They enter the field where the spinner lays waiting. Although rusty from a year's idleness, it's been daubed with grease on its movable parts. Shouts of: "Gee up, get back — get back, whoa, whoa," the team is backed up and harnessed to the machine. Ted clambers onto the old iron seat, a burlap sack for a cushion. Reins in hand, face turned from the weather, he clicks his tongue and Blossom and Flicker lurch forward.
Huge as they are, they step instinctively, daintily, between the furrows. Ted pulls on a lever and two wire tipped discs began to spin. A pull on a second lever and the whirling discs descend to make contact. Soil flies scattering its treasure in a six feet wide swath as this piece of Victorian ingenuity is hauled slowly up the length of the field. At the top the spinner blades are lifted, and Blossom and Flicker return to begin another row.
Meanwhile we pair off, take our places and begin to pick. I think of a childhood rhyme; one potato, two potato, three potato four. It can't begin to keep up with the number of potatoes we will pick during the week's harvest. Our school holiday coincides perfectly with the potato harvest. Maybe that was the idea. It's a source of cheap labour for the local farmers, and a source of scarce cash for the local kids.
Backs bent, we pick, and pick, and pick. Again and again Blossom and Flicker make the trip up the field. For them it seems like light work, for us it's aching back tedious. In rubber boots and short pants, lugging an old pail, I pick alongside my dad; he works for the farmer, and he keeps me working. He always seems to be able to kick the soil aside to expose a few more potatoes that would be missed by the less diligent. When our pails are full, we take them and empty them into the heavy burlap sacks which will be loaded onto the wagon at the end of the day.
The pails don't seem much lighter after emptying, not after the sides and bottom have collected a layer of heavy soil. Some of the kids have proper wire potato baskets. The mud doesn't stick to them, but they hold twice as many potatoes. There are always a few extra sacks, too, in case it rains, with one corner turned in they make the perfect cape — until they become sodden and heavy. If we are lucky a watery sun might show itself by mid-morning.
But the real spirit lifter is the arrival around ten-thirty of Mrs. Pennington, wife of Mr. Pennington. She brings a huge pail of cocoa. It's rich and sweet, made with fresh milk and cream. Of course, we must finish the row we are picking on before we can have any. You should see the potatoes fly.
By mid-afternoon it's time to prepare the rows for the following day. It's the worst of jobs, we must strip the potato tops off otherwise they'll tangle and choke the spinner. They are green and slimy, on the verge of rotting, sometimes frost covered. It's the job everyone hates. However, as horrible as the job is, it's a change from picking, and there is one bonus, after the tops have been piled up and dried Ted sets them alight. They are smoky and burn slowly, but they somehow brighten up the field.
At the end of the day we return to the farm. Everyone piles on to Mr. Pennington's car; a huge Ford V8 pilot. They say it's more powerful than any tractor. He uses it for everything, pulling wagons, carrying bales of hay, or taking calves to market in the back seat. It easily carries us kids; kids inside, kids in the trunk, and kids sitting on the fenders. We travel in style.
At the farm we line up at the house and are paid for the day — cash. The amounts vary according to age, size, and observance of our work ethic throughout the day. Clutching the hardest earned money I have ever received I walk home with my sister. My dad stays to milk the cows. He'll be milking them again at 6 the next morning.
I get to keep the money. I earned it and there are no restrictions on how I spend it. I set half aside for Christmas gifts for my mum and dad and sister Jacqueline, and a little something for a couple of aunts. The rest of it is soon spent. Potato picking week is followed two weeks later by bonfire night — November the 5th — Guy Fawkes night. The village shop is well stocked with fireworks to tempt the money from where it's already burning a hole in pockets.
By the time the fifth arrives a lot of kids have already set off their fireworks. But not mine. I keep them in a bag under my bed, each night I take them out and sort them, admiringly. I'm fascinated by the coloured wrappings and exciting names. Mount Vesuvius, Catherine wheels, Jumping Jacks, and Two penny cannons. I can hardly wait.
The evening of the fifth arrives. As dusk falls the bonfires are lit, dozens of them. I have my bag. With trembling fingers, I light each firework then stand back to watch, my eyes, I'm sure, are as bright as the flares and rockets that shoot upwards carrying my potato money with them, but I have no regrets; it was worth every penny. Besides, there's not just bonfires and fireworks, there's food — treacle cake and chewy toffee, but best of all, roasted in the dying embers, sprinkled with salt, and dripping with farm butter. Potatoes, my potatoes.
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