Hyacinths? You’ll need some hair lacquer
I have an intimate knowledge of hyacinths. The same can be said of strawberries, potatoes and cocktail onions. It was what we picked or sorted in the fields and factories of Boston when I was young. In those days, most casual work was connected to agriculture and there was plenty of it. It might have been mind-numbing but it guaranteed a ready source of income with which to buy comics, records, guitar strings or cigarettes, depending on your age.
I started working on the land when I was ten. A double decker bus would pick us up after school from the scout huts near Skirbeck church and take us to the fruit fields of Frampton, four miles away. The bus would be crammed with hyper-active school children, harassed young mothers and short-tempered grannies with ill-functioning hearing aids. Nobody talked; everybody shouted. This was punctuated by the odd slap and scream. It was pure bedlam.
When we were finally released from this uproar upon our arrival, all you could see were endless rows of bobbing rumps. All you could hear was the distant growl of a tractor and the trilling of skylarks in the vast skies above us. Within minutes, we were picking our own row, filling a bucket in exchange for a few pence and then repeating the process, more slowly each time. At first, you would start to pick with fast pecking hands. Very soon, however, any sense of urgency would disappear, quickly replaced by a mechanical lethargy until finally a state of paralysis set in. This was reflected in the shape of the body, from bent to crawling to completely inert. Some people, however, took this one step further. One summer, we found Gonk’s younger brother, Rabbit, curled-up asleep in one of the furrows. However, for the rest of us, three hours of routine picking left us with an aching back, knees covered in mashed strawberries and glazed eyes.
All soft fruit work was piece-work but at least with raspberries and gooseberries you didn’t have to stoop so far. That was the good news. The bad news was that you had to pick with prickles or thorns for company. Raspberries were bearable although the fruit was so delicate, it was like picking soft meringues - easily squash-able. Gooseberries, on the other hand, were savage. Trying to pick gooseberries quickly while only wearing a pair of Marigolds, was like feeding your hands into a factory loom. It was only the regulars who made any money. They could strip a bush within seconds and fill a wicker basket within minutes. I was so impressed the first time I witnessed it.
‘Wow, that’s amazing. I just tried to do that and left a lot of skin behind.’
‘You know why they’re so good, don’t you?
‘No.’
‘It’s the gloves they’ve got. They have metal palms. You could strip the barnacles from the bottom of a boat with a pair of those.’
Soft fruit piece-work was for the beginners. If you wanted to guarantee full time work for the holidays and enjoy a weekly pay packet, you needed to join a gang. I was lucky. As a fourteen year old, I found Maggie. She was an experienced ganger who didn’t suffer fools gladly. A strict disciplinarian, Maggie hated lateness, sloppy work and anybody answering her back. She had an acid tongue, skin as leathery as an old saddle-bag and a forearm smash that could stun a mule. If you toed the line, working for Maggie was a cinch. If you didn’t, you could be harangued, physically assaulted, summarily dismissed or, worst of all, find yourself walking all the way home from Spalding, a tedious and exhausting trek of fourteen miles. Work could be anywhere in the south of Lincolnshire. We would get picked up at 7a.m. in Boston and be working in the fields of Bicker, Pinchbeck, Dogdyke, Cowbit or Moulton Chapel by 8. The van which picked us up was held together with bits of bailer twine and wire - a description which could also be applied to some of the regular workers whose company we kept every holiday. Moose was one of them. He was a huge, kindly man with the strength of a cart horse but the brain of a child. Poor thing believed anything we told him. His trousers were always at half-mast, he sported a basin haircut and lived in a shed behind his mum’s council bungalow.
Most of the work was picking potatoes which is back-breaking and relentless. We prayed for the tractor with its plough to break down. When it didn’t, we had to pick two-handed to keep up although heel and toeing could lighten the load considerably. This entailed stamping on the potatoes to bury them with the heel of your boot and then scraping back with the toe to cover the evidence with soil. Well-practised proponents of this skill could tap-dance a whole row of potatoes out of existence. Many of the best workers were women who could work for hours without a break. As most of them smoked and kept their cigarettes in their mouths while picking, many of them sported nicotine stains on their upper lips. As a result, lunch times in the van could be a bit of a trial for the rest of us. Watching a nicotine stained woman eating a fried egg sandwich was not an appetising sight. Many a slice of pork pie was returned to a lunch box, uneaten.
Sometimes we were released from the retches and furrows to work on tractor-drawn potato harvesters, machines which harvested the crop and allowed sorting to be carried out on a mobile conveyor belt. A line of us would pick out the rotten or damaged potatoes. Once again, it was relentless work but at least we were standing up. The only problem came in really hot weather when the fields were dry. The harvester would create dust storms which meant that we had to wear hats, goggles and scarves to protect heads and faces. Looking like flying aces from the First World War, we baked, lost all sense of hearing and dreamt of ice-cold drinks.
Promotion came at the age of sixteen when we moved from the fields to the factory. Thinking we had finally made it, we got jobs at Johnson’s Seeds, working in the bulb packaging department. Little did we know, however, of the suffering which lay ahead. At first, our daily routine was a doddle. No rain, decent breaks, a canteen, good pay. And the work? Undemanding, if a little dull. My job was to load crocus bulbs into a mechanical hopper which vibrated back and forth and graded them. It wasn’t difficult - a bit of lugging, pushing a couple of buttons and some prodding. And repeat. But then we switched to hyacinth bulbs and for the next few weeks our lives became a living hell.
We should have heeded Beryl’s warning on the Friday afternoon.
‘Hyacinths on Monday. You’ll be needin’ some hair lacquer, lovey.’
I waited until she had gone before turning to Gary.
‘Hair lacquer? What’s she on about?’
‘Search me. It’s probably the medication.’
‘You reckon she’s off her trolley?’
‘Must be.’
A further clue was provided first thing on the Monday morning when we arrived at the hoppers. Eric, the manager, was positively buoyant. Chortling to himself, he winked at Stuart, the foreman, and both of them began to rub their hands together like two football supporters eagerly anticipating a cup final.
‘Come on, then, what are yer waitin’ fer? Git them machines runnin’ and them hyacinths tumblin’.’
And we did. And five minutes later, we were scratching crazily at our necks, throats and scalps and emitting high-pitched wails like the noise cars make when they are being crushed slowly in a scrapyard with a giant iron claw. Very quickly, any exposed skin was red raw and nasty welts had been scored by fingernails into our flesh. We jigged and flailed like members of a religious cult while Eric and Stuart rocked with laughter from the safety of their office.
And what was to blame for this sudden change of behaviour? Sounds implausible I know but it was the waxy skin on the hyacinth bulbs. You see, it breaks down into small flecks when it is tossed about in a hopper. These flecks become airborne and alight on the open pores of necks and throats and cause extreme irritation. The only way of preventing this is to apply a thick coating of hair lacquer to the skin to block the pores. Rather than being off her trolley, Beryl had been trying to protect us. What we took to be the mutterings of a mad woman were, in fact, the kind words of a co-worker.
We didn’t make the same mistake twice. On our way home, we called in at the chemist’s.
‘Five tins of hair lacquer, please.’
‘Blimey, young man, it’ll set like cement if yer use that much.’
If it was possible to protect against the effects of hyacinth bulbs, the same could not be said of cocktail onions. These were what we ended up sorting and grading in the factory job which took us through our college years. It wasn’t that they made your eyes stream. We soon got used to that. No, it was what lingered afterwards which was the cause of much embarrassment. You see, the smell of cocktail onions stays for days, not only on your clothes but on your skin as well. Baths, deodorant, after shave, all were useless in the struggle to remain fresh and wholesome. A weekend trip to the cinema with your girlfriend could be a fraught affair. In the warmth of the auditorium, the smell of onions returned with a vengeance, seeping out of bodily pores and crevices.
‘What on earth is that smell? It’s not you, is it?’
‘No, of course, not.’
‘Have you had a bath today?’
‘Yes, I had a long soak.’
‘Can you lean away a bit?’
‘That OK?’
‘Actually, can you sit over there?’
Even when we had left the job for good, we were haunted by the odour. Working in a cocktail onion factory might have been good money but it didn’t half play havoc with your love life.
So, there we have it. The trials and tribulations of working in the fields and factories of Boston as a pupil and student in the late 60s and early 70s. And its legacy? A life-long admiration for anybody working on the land and an appreciation of the choices which were made available to me in my own life.
Next time: ‘On the Verge of Orchids (or Where did I put that Herb Paris?)’
