The Appeal of Mrs Toogood

A few years ago, two things happened that are basically to blame for this blog. First, my dad bought a field just outside my home town of Louth. It’s about 11 acres of bumpy grassland with a river running through it. Not a big river, but big enough to qualify.

Second, I spent about half an hour in a local supermarket wondering why all the available apples were Braeburns and Pink Ladies and why there weren’t any Cox’s Orange Pippins. Obviously, I concluded that there must be a sinister campaign to replace traditional varieties with lab-designed mutant clone apples. It subsequently transpired that the actual reason was that they’d sold out and there were plenty in the next week, but it was too late by that point. I went home and started meandering around the murky depths of the interweb.

I discovered a website that purported to store information about long lost apples that had once blossomed freely across the midshires of England but were now consigned to history books. Presumably, history books that were exclusively found on the reading lists of degree courses in extinct fruit and veg. Still, probably more useful than my degree in Politics and International Relations.

The website listed about forty lost varieties of Lincolnshire apples but tantalisingly included this phrase, “it is possible that some of these might still exist today.” My meaningless life suddenly had a cause. What are we as a civilisation if we allow obscure fruit varieties to fade away without even a cursory attempt to protect them? I determined to track them down, surreptitiously hack a bit off the tree and transplant them to safety in my dad’s field.

There were only two minor problems that I could foresee. One, I don’t know what any of them look like and, two, I don’t know where to find them. Also, I don’t know anything about apples. Which is three. Still, how hard could it be?

The plan, in so far as a vaguely thought out hare-brained idea can be called a plan, is to pick an apple from the list, scour the internet to find out as much information as I can about it and then to head off vaguely in the direction of its last rumoured sighting and see if I can find it. The blog will describe my thrilling adventures and maybe even include a photo if I remember to take any. I’ve taken about 4 since the invention of the camera phone and they’ve all been of my cat, so no promises on that score.

Next week, a short waffley piece about the list, including the mysterious truth about the legendary Mrs Toogood variety, and possibly some preliminary research findings about the first apple on the list. Pretend you don’t care. I dare you.