The first wild flowers I picked – in the days when it was still OK to do so – were for Mothering Sunday. They are forever tied for me with Lilian Drabble. Lilian was my foster mum. She gave my brother and me a new home, and a new life with her husband Dudley, our new dad. Lilian loved primroses.
In our first year she’d walk us to school. I was five, Christopher was six. If the sea was out it was a shortish walk along the tidal road or the stepping stones, past the seaweed to the sound of gulls. If the tide was in, it was a longer walk, up hills, through the farm, past the stream, the high Devon hedges, blackbirds, mistle thrush. In the spring there were hazel catkins, wild orchids, bluebells and primrose. In the autumn, we’d gather blackberries for Dad’s favourite pie.
Coming up to Mothering Sunday, schoolkids would pick small posies of primroses to be handed to mums at matins. It was, I think, the only church service Lilian went to; at least the one where she is painted most vividly in my memory. She’d walk home with us, her two foster kids, with her best butterfly brooch, her pewter-coloured hair specially done, holding her small bunch of wild flowers.
Primroses were like Lilian: sometimes unforthcoming, perhaps subdued if not shy. I wouldn’t recommend picking them in the wild now: there seem to be fewer than in my childhood, but many good nurseries specialise in spring flowers. There are likely some in your garden centre today. I tend to avoid the often-beautiful, highly coloured and cultivated Primulaceae (though I can get over-excited if I spot wild cowslip). But there are a few scattered primroses near the pond at the plot so today I’ll look for them and remember my mum.
Allan Jenkins’s Plot 29 (4th Estate, £14.99) is out now. Order it for £12.74 from guardianbookshop.com
