The Appeal of Mrs Toogood

As a youngster, I used to take great delight in making life hard for my teachers. That was what kids did back then, even ones as painfully nerdy as me. When I eventually became a man, a couple of months before my recent fiftieth birthday, I honestly intended to turn my back on such jiggery pokery and start to be vaguely pleasant to people. Sadly, once apples became involved, things went rapidly south.

Some time ago, I discovered online evidence that a retired teacher from my old school in Louth, a Mr J. Craig Pillans, ended up being quite a prolific author on the subject of apples. I went to school way back in the days of pre-decimal currency (almost) but I still remember him as a tall, distinguished gentlemanly type character, much enamoured with church organs and the like. Thirty-five years have passed since then, and any reasonable person would accept that Mr Pillans deserves a quiet retirement and some peace and quiet to indulge in whatever interest currently floats his boat. But oh, that tempting pomological knowledge. I must have it. Apples have always been the downfall of man.

I decided to write to him but couldn’t find any online contact details. It was almost as if he didn’t want lardy weirdoes contacting him out of the blue. Or maybe it was just an oversight on his part. He had probably been forced to cancel his website in favour of meeting the BBC’s unreasonable demands for licence fees from the senior and respected.

As luck (mine, not his) would have it, more searching revealed that he had chosen to celebrate his 70^th birthday in 2009 by delivering a piano recital in the Conoco Room above Louth Library. Why do such a thing if you don’t really want to be hassled, I ask you? I banged off an email to one of the organisers and was gobsmacked when self-same organiser, a Mr. Alan John, bothered to reply. He forwarded my request for help and information and said he would let me know if he heard anything back. Brilliant. All I needed to do now was wait.

Weeks passed and I decided that the venerable JCP had probably wisely decided not to return my (electronic) call, but then an email from Mr John turned up in my virtual inbox. He needed my  actual physical address because he’d received an envelope with things in it for me! It turned out to be a photocopy of an article Mr Pillans had scripted for the July 1990 newsletter of the Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology. I was genuinely made up. No personal letters or invitation to tea and cake but a response and some great pointers nonetheless.

I joke about it but this is an 80 year old man, who owed me nothing, taking the time to help out with my ridiculous hobby. Mr John and Mr Pillans, you both have my respect and thanks. If this blog was of any literary worth, I’d send them a link so they can read me thanking them. But it isn’t. So I won’t.

With all this new information taken into account, I’ve developed a sort of almost scientific three stage plan for the orchard. Ideally, I would’ve found all this out before committing to writing a post every week but no-one’s forcing anyone to read it. Apart from the family, of course. They’ve got no excuse.

The schedule runs something like this. Apples have started appearing on trees, albeit not yet in an edible state. If I can get samples of them over the next few weeks, I’ll be able to take them along to organised apple days where actual experts will hopefully be able to identify them. That means I need to properly survey the handful of orchard type arrangements I’ve found so that when I take the sample apples, I’ll know what tree they are from and can thereafter pick and choose which ones to nab and transplant to Ticklepenny Lock.

In September-ish, the trees I’ve ordered from the heritage apple suppliers can be planted in the field. I’m planning about ten I think. Maybe a couple more if I’m feeling adventurous.

If I find trees growing wild that I haven’t bought, come February next year, I should be able to graft samples on to purchased root stock.

Then I wait a couple of years for miraculous nature shenanigans and, hey presto, an orchard!

There’s no real point growing trees from seeds. Apple trees pollinate each other so although the apple on the branch is a bonafide specimen of the intended variety, the seeds within are dirty secret agents that are secretly plotting to grow into weird crossbreeds. Obviously, that’s mostly how experts raise new varieties but, at least in this stage of my apple career, I am not one of them.

So it’s going to be a slow old process and not the subject matter of an exciting Indiana Jones style blog. Secretly I probably knew that all along. Again, as I’ve said before, assuming you are not closely related to me and therefore obliged to report back on your favourite blog sentence every week, feel free not to read until there’s some action.

I’d love you to carry on though. I’m a man of simple pleasures and this blog (which is now over 15,000 words!) is basically all of them. Apart from the cat, of course.

Next week, the first orchard survey.