The Appeal of Mrs Toogood

Most of my trees are heaving with infant apples. Branches that I should have pruned in the winter are bending under the strain and resting their loads on the ground for the local rabbits. A few of them look like they might be about to give in under the weight. The apples are so closely bunched that they risk ending up like square blocks, which I suppose would at least make them easier to pack. It’s a bit of a sorry state to be honest and, if I’m going to make a go of this orchard thing, I can’t let this happen again next year.

Too late to worry about that now though. Come the Autumn, when I can start cropping in earnest, I plan on having another go at making cider. Last time I tried was a bit of a disaster, although I don’t have much of a palate when it comes to cider so maybe I just didn’t appreciate it properly.

Purely for research purposes, I dragged a willing accomplice along to what was billed online as Louth Beer and Cider Festival, taking place at the cricket ground a couple of weeks ago. After paying our dues and grabbing a shaded seat in the main tent, I checked the list of 35 available drinks and found precisely two ciders, neither of which were apple based. I enjoyed them both but I was still left a bit frustrated.

I combed the supermarkets on my way home for local cider and found nothing except some Herefordshire nonsense produced in vast quantities but made to look artisanal. The deceit didn’t stop me picking up a few samples, mind. Back home, nursing my first pint, I fired up the computer and waded into the interweb. Duck Duck Go pointed me at two Lincolnshire cider makers, but neither really floated my boat. One of them is a fairly large affair that makes lovely stuff but without heritage apples. The other claims to offer cider from the heart of Lincolnshire but is actually located in Nottinghamshire.

Surely one of the old Lincolnshire directories would shed some light on our rich and varied history of cider? Nope. Nothing at all. White’s and Kelly’s both come up blank and Pigot’s lists a selection from other counties but none from round my way. Greater Lincolnshire Library catalogue? “Your search for “Lincolnshire cider” found nothing.” I get one interesting hit in the Lincolnshire Archive but it turns out to be a will from 1763 handing over a cider mill in pigging Herefordshire. Absolute pants.

My last hope is a half-remembered place near the coast that I’d heard mentioned by several family members. Worryingly although there are pictures of their cider online, Skidbrooke Cider has no official website and their social media accounts have been quiet since 2022. No answer on the phone either. It’s not looking promising but still worth a trip. There’s a lot to be said for having time on your hands.

Eschewing common sense in favour of reckless ambition, I saddle up on the hottest day of the year, remove any head covering that might protect me from sunstroke, empty my water bottle down the sink and set off for Skidbrooke on my unfolded Brompton bicycle. Sometimes I think buying one in British Racing Green was a subconscious act of irony. The cadence of my pedal stroke is more Sunday driver than boy racer.

The route looks easy enough on paper though and, unless I go horribly wrong, I’m heading away from the energy-sapping Wolds. Soon I’m trundling along deserted country roads with a gurning smile on the bottom half of my face singing half-remembered songs from the eighties. The one car I do see this side of South Cockerington passes me at such a crawl that I think he must be worried about spooking me. Once he’s a few yards ahead, he puts the pedal to the metal and disappears in a cloud of dust. Making up for lost time I suppose.

There are wind farms to the left and right of me and endless fields of green and gold. It’s quite the sight. I’m having the time of my life until suddenly my skin and spectacles are colonised by waves of thunderflies looking to scab a lift. I try to brush and blow them off but I’m getting nowhere and eventually have to accept a sort of grudging truce with my passengers. They plague me for the next few miles of my ride but don’t cause any lasting damage. Hopefully, me spreading them about a bit will at least prevent some thunderfly inbreeding. My Grandma used to call them Men of Wroot, which is a village near Epworth. I’ve still no idea why.

On a particularly twisty stretch of road a couple of cars get trapped behind me and I suddenly understand what it must be like to drive farm machinery along country lanes. I shatter the illusion though by pulling over and letting them pass. You’d never catch a proper tractor doing that. The rearmost motorist waves almost frantically, letting his relief get the better of his dignity. More thunderflies descend as I pause: so much for karma.

Eventually I reach Skidbrooke and start pottering aimlessly around the streets looking for apple trees. I end up on the far side of the village looking up at an abandoned church with no windows and lots of forbidding looking metal fencing. A mildewed sign reveals that the building is owned by the Churches Conservation Trust. I’ll let them off for now, but if I come back next year and nothing’s still been done, they will be getting a less-than-complimentary Facebook review.

The village has the salty air of somewhere close to the coast. It’s nothing too intense or dramatic at this distance but it’s still there. I can feel the waves even though I can’t hear them, ready to roll in and drown everything if they decide they’ve got nothing else in their diary. I’m tempted to ride over to the beach and have a paddle but I’m determined to carry on searching for cider.

Sadly, the search is not going well. There are no painted signs showing ruddy-faced locals sipping pints of red liquor or visitors heaving crates of glass bottles. In fact there’s nothing to give me any real hope I’m in the right place. I give my dad a quick call, cognisant of the fact that he’s at his gliding club and won’t want to be disturbed by his equal least favourite child (official chart: 1, Chloe, US-based apple of his eye. 2, the rest of us). He mutters something non-committal about erecting a portacabin and then tells me the cider place is in the middle of nowhere and perhaps I should ask someone local. I look around and try to imagine how somewhere could be more nowhere than where I am right now.

My luck changes as I’m returning my lumpy old Samsung to the pocket of my cargo shorts.

“Are you looking for the cider place?” asks a stout looking fella emerging from behind a shed.

Here we go I think, taking in his wild grey hair, ragged woolly jumper and wellies; if he’s not nursing a lifelong cider habit, my name’s not Michael Keith Beaky Mick and Titch Fowler.

“I heard your phone call,” he explains. It would be easily done: there’s literally no other sound going on. “You need to go down the end of this lane, turn right and carry on to the last house. That’s the place, although it closed down about three year ago. Sold the business.”

Bugger. Victory is snatched from my grasp yet again. I might be getting used to it but it still hurts.

Beaten and starting to regret buying such an unpadded saddle, I cycle slowly home. Lincolnshire’s cider history might be long gone, if it ever really had one, but I’ll be buggered if I’ll let that stop me wading in. I can probably learn much more on YouTube than I’d ever have got from apprenticing to an actual cider maker anyway. Mark my words, Ticklepenny shall have its tap.