Family Memories Birmingham Grandfather

His Allotment

We also had a small fowl house in our garden where we kept hens. How I remember one April Fools day going to look for eggs which I took into the kitchen. Dad glanced out of the window and said, "Who has let the fowls out?" I was an April fool much to Dad's amusement. These allotments were later taken by the Corporation for Housing. However another allotment site was laid out adjacent to the Upland Cemetery. It was named the Piggeries as allotment holders had founded a pig club, their animals being kept on the site. Dad was one of the first tenants and was awarded 1st prize at the end of the first year for the best allotment. (He had no idea of such an award being made). A Bank Holiday was to take a big enamel pot of tea, well wrapped up to keep warm, bread and butter and cake to the allotment and have a picnic in his shed, looking out on the flowers and vegetables growing to perfection. One afternoon dad went to the allotment after work to find two strange ladies picking his gooseberries. To their embarrassment they had mistaken the plot which they were to visit. How they apologised!

Although very rheumaticy and stiff he kept his allotment on and managed to do the planting before he was so ill in the early summer of 1960. Dad grew some lovely tulips and daffodils. Today on our own allotment we still have progeny from "Dads tulips and daffodils" Note added by his granddaughter:
Above is a photo of a view towards the allotments, Grandad's allotment was on the left of the photo where the shed roofs can be seen. The path to it was next to the cemetery railings. A little further along this path was a pond where frogspawn could be found in spring and a tulip tree which my mother always said was very rare and only flowered occasionally.
The land at the front of the photo is now open space but when Grandad has his allotment it was farmed with various crops being grown in the fields.