Dear All,
This week has revolved around the talks I had to deliver. It started
on Sunday with the children’s talk on “Sheep”. If you want an entertaining few
moments Google “Sheep, Stuck, photos” – there are pages of sheep with their
heads stuck in objects, on roofs and stranded on rocky ledges.
On Monday I drove down to Stow-on-the-Wold to address the Vegetable
Consultants Association (VCA) at their annual conference. I was booked to do
their after dinner talk on “The History of NIAB” but charged with remembering
that some would be “tired and emotional” so keep it light. Actually I enjoyed
preparing for this as there was quite a lot I did not know about the
agriculture at the time it was set up in 1919 when seed was poor quality and
new varieties were not being introduced or looked after – everyone just nicked
other peoples varieties and reselected or renamed them resulting in vast arrays
of synonyms.
Stow-in-the-Wold
Meanwhile they rang me on the previous Friday evening to say that
their speaker on “Organics” had dropped out – could I stand in. It solved what
to do on a wet cold Saturday morning!
Then Friday it was my turn to present a Biography. I chose “Henry J
Heinz and his 57 varieties” He was growing vegetables aged 6, selling round the
village aged 8, had his own horse and cart aged 12 and rising at 3 am to travel
to Pittsburg to sell to shops and offices aged 14. His first processed product
was horseradish and there were more than 57 varieties when the slogan was
introduced and 1350 by the time it was back pedalled. He was a strong supporter
of the Sunday School movement all his life and Heinz currently sell 650m
bottles of Tomato Ketchup pa and last year turned over $11.6 billion with
35,000 employees.
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Henry Heinz
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The Pittsburg Factory
The walk on Thursday was another sticky one starting at Balsham
taking in West Wickham and West Wratting. There was a high percentage of fields
to cross with a particularly adhesive brand of clay underfoot.
The U3A film this week was “Charlie Wilson’s War” based on a true
story of a US Senators involvement with Afghanistan when the Russians were the
invaders.
Advent Service tonight at the Anglican Church – time marches on!
Love
Mike & Kate
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