Trousers and Berry Picking

Irene Munro

It was hard being a middle-class girl in a working class village; more so when your mother had weird ideas like not letting you wear trousers till you were fourteen years of age, and also not letting you go to 'the berries' with your friends at the raspberry farm up the road.

The day came, though, when I was allowed to do both.

I always felt a total misfit because I never got to wear trousers, even during the freezing Sixties, inland Perthshire winters. Everyone else had lovely cosy, colourful tartan trousers; I just had colourful bright red knees, and bright white socks.

However the age of fourteen must have been a 'coming of age' thing in my mum's mind, because one day that summer - o blessed day, I was allowed to go to the berry-picking -AND - I was allowed to wear trousers. After all, who on earth could go to the berries in a skirt?

The day dawned bright and sunny and a bogie came to collect us all from the bottom of the village - no health and safety concerns as we all trundled the mile and a half up to the farm on this rickety trailer.

We arrived just before the big double deckers arrived from Letham estate. It looked like they would never make it up the narrow farm track but they wobbled their way up, packed with pickers.

My friend, Elspeth, instructed me that you had to 'pick clean' every single berry from behind the leaves or you would be sent home by Big Dick. Big Dick sounded quite a menacing figure, made more sinister by the fact that he did actually seem to appear from nowhere, said nothing but just threw back the leafy canes to expose my 'unclean' picking habits.

Still that first day, I was so determined to show that even though I was a novice and my friends had been picking for years, I could keep up with them in productivity.

The 'weigh-in' time came. We formed an orderly queue behind the travellers, who lived in beaten-up caravans nearby, protected by hundreds of growly dogs. Elspeth said the travellers always got the most, and sure their pails were heaped up more than anyone else's.

The time came when my offering was weighed by Elspeth's dad, Big Buick. He was fairly frightening as well. (Whenever I visited Elspeth, there were always loads of carcasses of small dead animals, shot by her dad, to step past, in order to access her back door, His dogs were chained to kennels and seemed like the hounds of the Baskervilles to me.)

The weigh-in was carried out with tense seriousness. Certainly I would not be challenging Big Buick if I thought I deserved more payment! I recall that we were paid two and a half (old) pence a pound of berries, if they were gong for jam, or four pence if they were for the shops to be eaten.

So once mine were weighed, the amount was shouted to an unknown, unseen person, in an all-enclosed small green corrugated iron hut, who did the arithmetic calculation. Only her arm was seen as the due coinage was pushed out on the counter.

My elation at actually earning money was tempered by the look on Elspeth's face as it transpired that I had actually picked, in my zeal, more than any of my friends. What a huffy lot! I kind of knew though, that they all had to go to the berries because they had to buy their own school uniforms, whereas it was my choice and all pocket-money for a middle-class girl. So they just saw me as a snob.

It was quite a silent lunch, as we sat on our up-turned pails, though Elspeth did offer one of her tomato pieces to me. Some had syrup pieces, but I knew that syrup pieces would be a step too far for my mum. For some reason, though, I have no recollection of what I ate.

I thought that maybe this would be quite a lonely afternoon for me as they were all picking in pairs and so I had a dreel on my own.

Well the rain came down and stopped the activity on the berry-fields. We all tramped through the mud back home. My mum was not amused at the state of my trousers. I had not thought to tuck the trousers into my wellies. So I managed to fall out with my chums and my mum, at my first day at the berries.

The best part of the day was recounting to our Southern English visitors about the special terminology of the berry-fields; the bogie, the cleek, the luggie, the dreel, and all about Big Dick and Big Buick. How they hooted with laughter.

But my main concern was - would the trousers -in those pre-tumble dryer days, be ready to wear by tomorrow? I was certainly desperate to go back to the berries- but not in a skirt!!

Glossary-

Bogie- a cart, a trailer

Travellers- Travelling people who lived in encampments and moved around the countryside.

Cleek - a hook to keep the luggie on

Luggie- a small pail which was attached to a hook which was attached to belt round the waist

Dreel - a drill of ploughed land