Faded pressed petals, veined and diaphanous, drift from the pages of my book. The pencil lines that my civil-servant father drew, to keep his handwriting straight, are faded too. An uncharacteristic but hastily corrected mistake in the verse he penned for my 11th birthday surprises me.
On summer Sunday afternoons, we’d ramble as a family along country lanes on the outskirts of pre-Troubles Belfast. Here, pointing out clumps of dark, thick, crinkled leaves, he predicted an eruption of yellow primroses. When his forecast proved true, I adorned the May altar with pride.
There he untangled pink-white bindweed trumpets to show how magically and tragically they shrivelled the moment they were plucked. When nettles bubbled our shins with tiny white blisters, he soothed our stings with crumpled, crimson-veined dock leaves.
He shone golden buttercups against our chins “to check if you like butter” and snapped purple foxglove bells together just to hear them pop. He awakened my senses to the intoxicating fragrance of honeysuckle and dangled magenta fuchsia “earrings” from my lobes.
Brambles scratched our limbs, mingling purple juice and blood, as we foraged for swollen blackberries. When dog roses shed their blush-coloured petals, we learned that Delrosa paid thruppence a pound for rose- hips. Thorns pierced our fingertips as we nipped off the scarlet, vitamin-laden fruit and despaired of ever having enough.
Only he could reach the split, spiky, green conkers that tantalised us with glimpses of their gleaming mahogany kernels. We gathered acorns and beech nuts, learning about trees, and watched transfixed as he transformed winged sycamore pods into fluttering gossamer “helicopters”. Blowing fluffy balls of dandelion clocks, we learned about seeds and discovered it was time for home.
I’d delve into my treasured, six-shilling reference book. The sheep’s-bit scabious, gromwell, hemp-agrimony and bugloss, found in hedgerows and meadows in Britain, were alien to me.
Among the bluebells, primroses, clover and furze, beloved of my late father, I am still at home. We would love to receive your family memories, anecdotes, traditions, mishaps and triumphs.
- Email 350 words and a relevant photograph if you have one to familyfortunes@irishtimes.com. A fee will be paid
