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October was Blackberry week, Harvest Festival if you are a churchgoer.
This was the time the local farmer gathered in his potatoes. He'd plough them up and the girls would follow on and gather them up.
That is when us kids would get a sack and the coal rake and go tatie gleaning. When that was over then we'd go looking for the blackberries. We knew all of the spots from previous years and we'd go out with our jam jars with string round the top.
If it wasn't a good year, we had a private spot along the road which was the high road to Shields, just past the turn off to the Boldon frog ponds.
Lesson in life
It was a private estate, it had that look of being deserted, and we could gain entry from the rear of the property. That was where their private blackberry patch was. And these were the real thing - big and juicy!
Anyhow, this particular day it was far from being deserted. We were all in the middle of the patch when a little old lady appeared. We were ready to take off, but she assured us that everything was okay and we were welcome to the berries as long as we didn't cause any damage to the bushes.
So she talked to us as we filled our jars, and then she asked if we had ever seen a white blackbird. As we were all into bird watching and collected eggs, we couldn't believe there was such a thing. But she took us to a part of the estate and after a short while this bird appeared.
It wasn't pure white but most of it was. Of course we were amazed, but at that time we had never heard of an albino. This was just another lesson in life!
Drop me a line if you have Blackberry Week memories to share!
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Copyright (c) 2000-2001 Sue Kelly