Sun setting over Manningtree

shanemax said:
For those without local knowledge Tiptree, in Essex has a marmalade factory and I believe I am right in saying they produced our late Queens favorite marmalade.
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I used to live a mile or two away from Wilkin's jam factory. Driving past in winter months, if steam was flying I'd open a window and smell the gorgeous smell of marmalade bubbling away. In the appropriate season, you can also smell strawberry jam.
 
My neighbour and sailing mate was born in Tiptree and his father used to grow strawberries for Wilkins, and another club mate was a director. Old Times and Tawny or our regulars, as well as their strawberry jam. If you want a treat, Little Scarlet is the Champagne of strawberries and almost worth the extra. Their mulberry jam is also very special.
 
My first paid job, picking Little Scarlets for Wilkins. I was a poor worker, and claimed to have finished picking a row, when Mr Egan, the ganger with a broad Irish accent, lifted the leaves with his bamboo cane, and said “What do you those are, bloody coconuts?!” Despite our Home Secretary’s entreatment, I haven’t returned to the profession.
 
Snowgoose-1 said:
I have a feeling that the owner/director used to keep an Island Packet at Titchmarsh .
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John is a lovely chap. He was a director, not owner and once lived in one of Wivenhoe’s riverside cottages. His father owned Maid of Wyvern and John, who is still going strong but had to stop sailing for health reasons, had several boats since we moved nearby, ending up with a vast Island Packet which, as you say, he kept at Titchmarsh. We sailed in company with them several times and had many hilarious moments, especially one Baltic cruise when the pump-out for their holding tank got blocked (from the previous owner’s carelessness). I had some short sails on the IP but it wasn’t my idea of a cruising boat.
 
We had endless amusement cruising in company with John on Aquilegia, though we couldn't keep up with him motoring at 7.5kn. On one occasion we were both moored to a mid-river pontoon up the Fal and were within about five paces of each other but it was raining so hard that John sent me a text message inviting us for drinks. The favoured drink on board was Pimms and the sun always went belong the yardarm at noon, wherever they were. On our last cruise together they had loaded a full case of Pimms for the duration.

Although a generally cautious person, John often seemed to encounter problems, such as the time they fuelled up in Vitte in the Baltic. The bill for the fuel was about 500 euros and it turned out that they would only take cash, so John, with his two replacement knees had to walk to the village to get some cash. Unfortunately, the cash machine would only issue 250 euros, so John had to return to the boat and get one of his two crew to go back to get the remainder, which at least gave me a head start.

Little did he know how devious I can be, and I made it my task to lead him and his ship into the smallest possible harbours, like this one, Gudhjem on Bornholm where he is on the left.
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On a good day the Island Packet went well enough and could look quite imposing
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I was a boarder at CRGS. After “O” levels there was a three weeks gap in the curriculum l, so I cycled to Tiptree and picked strawberries. 2d a punnet, old money, so 120 punnets = £1.

I was highly motivated, as my father, working in Libya, had said that, if I wanted to buy a boat, he would match whatever I made.

On my last day of picking I stopped at a pub and had a pint. Cost 2s, or 12 punnets, but it was worth it. Father was rather better than his word and I became the Master and Owner of an 18ft carvel dayboat which I kept with Ben Clarke in City Lane.

It was ten years before I could face eating a strawberry.
 
14K478 said:
On my last day of picking I stopped at a pub and had a pint. Cost 2s, or 12 punnets, but it was worth it. Father was rather better than his word and I became the Master and Owner of an 18ft carvel dayboat which I kept with Ben Clarke in City Lane.
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Should be able to carbon-date you from the above admission of underage drinking, 14K478. I was a day boy at the Grammar, and by the time I started my underage descent into alcohol, my weekly newspaper logistics executive salary of £1.00 stretched to five pints of Ben Truman and a packet of Walkers' smoky bacon crisps, including the bus fare for the 7pm Osborne's bus from Tollesbury to the Plough on Oxley Hill.

When I finished failing my A Levels, I ran away to sea on one of John Kemp's barges, and my then skipper Des reckoned we could get a pint of mild in the pub at Wrabness for 16p. I therefore suspect your post-strawberry pint for 10p must have pre-dated not only the 1973 oil crisis, and the rampant inflation that followed, but of course decimalisation. As that was February 1971, I hazard the guess that it was the previous strawberry harvest of 1970 that saw your subcontracting for Wilkin and Sons?

Am I close?
 
Black Diamond said:
Should be able to carbon-date you from the above admission of underage drinking, 14K478. I was a day boy at the Grammar, and by the time I started my underage descent into alcohol, my weekly newspaper logistics executive salary of £1.00 stretched to five pints of Ben Truman and a packet of Walkers' smoky bacon crisps, including the bus fare for the 7pm Osborne's bus from Tollesbury to the Plough on Oxley Hill.

When I finished failing my A Levels, I ran away to sea on one of John Kemp's barges, and my then skipper Des reckoned we could get a pint of mild in the pub at Wrabness for 16p. I therefore suspect your post-strawberry pint for 10p must have pre-dated not only the 1973 oil crisis, and the rampant inflation that followed, but of course decimalisation. As that was February 1971, I hazard the guess that it was the previous strawberry harvest of 1970 that saw your subcontracting for Wilkin and Sons?

Am I close?
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A hair’s breadth. 1969. Well done!
 
14K478 said:
A hair’s breadth. 1969. Well done!
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Inflation was just starting then. My first pint was in 1962 in the Bull at the top end of Romford cattle market 11d for Ind Coope mild brewed in the town. My posh friends led me astray to the Golden Lion at the other end of the market that was patronised by office types rather than farm workers and the beer was 2d a pint more expensive.
History of Romford brewery here with the Bull in the list of pubs
breweryhistory.com/wiki/index.php?title=Ind_Coope_Ltd

Happy days
 
Interesting about the Romford brewery, I never knew it was an Essex pint in those days, but Ind Coope IPA was usually the drink of choice in my early career. One day I swaggered into the King's Head in Tollesbury as a bona fide adult and saw they had a new beer on the hand pumps, 'Tap Bitter', by Trumans. It was half the price of 'Ben', so I ordered a pint, and found it tasted ghastly, so it was straight back onto Ben. The next evening, Tap Bitter had increased in price to a hefty premium over Ben, so I enquired why, and was told that it was a promotional price the day before. I tried another sip of Tap, and conceded I had been a tad hasty, and there were nuances of hop and malt that I maybe hadn't sufficiently rolled around my palate the evening previous.

I have always maintained the best marketing strapline ever was thought up by Stella Artois, 'Reassuringly Expensive'.
 
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