Rain at One O’Clock. Three Boys Had Gone. Marked Absent.

The war was on and the Ministry of Food wanted jam. In August a circular arrived from the Director of Education about the ingathering of the blackberries. In Berkshire the Remenham parish magazine spelled out the scheme: threepence a pound to the children, holidays for picking, organised parties under their teachers, berries ripe and dry, no damage, all gates closed behind them, and every berry reserved for the government. None to be sold. None, presumably, to be eaten on the way home, although the magazine was realistic enough not to say so.

Clarborough’s campaign, by the log. 6 September: school closed for the afternoon and the children taken on and about Clarboro tunnel in search of blackberries. 9 September: rain; three boys gone; three boys absent. 10 September: closed again for collection. 12 September: closed again, and the running total reaches 194½lb.

Somebody weighed that. Somebody wrote down the half.

Other schools had their own problems. On 24 September Aldermaston took a half-day for blackberrying, then found the berries could not be sent off, because no baskets had arrived, owing to a railway strike. Little Coxwell, the same day, noticed the weather was fine and took the older children out at once instead of waiting for Thursday.

Little Coxwell watched the sky. Aldermaston watched the trains.

On Sunday I organised a blackberry outing of my own. There was a printed plan, four plastic tubs and a rule about gates, which I read out in the car park. At one o’clock a shower came over the hill. The eldest and our daughter walked back to the bus stop and went home. My husband, the youngest and I went on along the hedge with our hoods up.

We came home an hour later, wet through, with about a pound and a half and purple to the wrist. The eldest had got there first and written on the kitchen whiteboard, in capitals, the date, the weather and a short entry.

THREE HAD GONE. THEY WERE MARKED ABSENT.