Gooseberry

I’m guessing that most countries have their own smallish and maybe seeming downright odd groups and societies. There is a milestone at the end of my road and not long ago I had occasion to query something about it. I was wondering how on earth I could find out some information and looked on google and there it was. The Milestone Society and they were great.

I know nothing about Gooseberries and was trawling through the usual suspects when, blow me, there it was. Gooseberry Societies.

It seems that today there only nine Gooseberry Societies left – but they seem to be in fine form. The end of July and beginning of August is the highlight of their year when they hold their shows. Eight of those societies are in Cheshire which was once at the centre of the gooseberry growing world, and together they form the Mid – Cheshire Gooseberry Shows Association which is supported by the Cheshire Landscape Trust with support from the Heritage Lottery fund. The other one is at Egton Bridge, near Whitby in North York. This is the oldest surviving group having been founded in 1800.

I had a look at the 2022 report on the Egton Bridge event:
The 2022 show produced a fine display of berries, topped off by a society first for Graeme Watson. Not only did Graeme win his eleventh title, he also achieved the elusive maximum score in the Champion Grower competition. The champion grower is assessed over six categories, heaviest berry in the four colours (red, yellow, green & white), heaviest twins (two berries on one stalk) and heaviest dozen. Ten points are awarded to the winner in each category down to one for tenth place. For the first time ever, a single grower has scored the maximum ten points in each category, hitting the mythical 60/60. Graeme can now add this accolade to his Guinness World Record for heaviest gooseberry.

The rules of the Society can be confusing when looking at the full results. The rules are written to stop one grower walking off with all of the prizes, which is why Graeme Watson is not listed below as the winner of every category. It is only in calculating the champion grower that the rules are pushed to one side to gauge the year’s champion berry grower.

In 2021 Bryan Nellist took the title after two berries had to be re-weighed in a ‘berry off’ to determine the champion. Bryan’s berry and the one entered by Paul Bennison were both weighed at 26 Drams, 18 Grains (47.2 g). To determine the champion the berries were again placed on the balance, but the result remained too tight to call so for once the Society turned to modern weighing technology and Bryan was declared victorious after goldsmith’s scales were used to prove it weighed 0.02g more than its competitor. Without doubt this is the closest finish in more than 200 years of competition at Egton Bridge. Bryan said “It’s just unbelievable really. I thought my winning days were over – I was hoping to get a prize, but certainly not the top one. It was a delight, absolutely.”

In 2018 the show was graced by the presence of 12 members of the Skillinge Gooseberry Society from Sweden. Over 25 years ago their chairperson saw a small glimpse of the show on the BBC and was so fascinated that a new gooseberry show was born and 2018 saw the Skillinge Krusbïrsfestival celebrate its tenth anniversary with a visit to its inspiration.

The 224th show will be held on Tuesday 5th August 2025, it is free to attend and is open to the public from 2 PM. There will be music playing in the afternoon from 4:30 PM provided by the ever popular Eskuleles and the prize giving will begin at 6 PM. Members are reminded that berries must be with the judges by midday at the latest.

I think it’s wonderful. And so is this, by Simon Armitage:

Gooseberry Season

Which reminds me. He appeared
at noon, asking for water. He’d walked from town
after losing his job, leaving me a note for his wife and his brother
and locking his dog in the coal bunker.
We made him a bed

and he slept till Monday.
A week went by and he hung up his coat.
Then a month, and not a stroke of work, a word of thanks,
a farthing of rent or a sign of him leaving.
One evening he mentioned a recipe

for smooth, seedless gooseberry sorbet
but by then I was tired of him: taking pocket money
from my boy at cards, sucking up to my wife and on his last night
sizing up my daughter. He was smoking my pipe
as we stirred his supper.

Where does the hand become the wrist?
Where does the neck become the shoulder? The watershed
and then the weight, whatever turns up and tips us over that
        razor’s edge
between something and nothing, between
one and the other.

I could have told him this

but didn't bother. We ran him a bath
and held him under, dried him off and dressed him
and loaded him into the back of the pick-up.
Then we drove without headlights

to the county boundary,
dropped the tailgate, and after my boy
had been through his pockets we dragged him like a mattress
across the meadow and on the count of four
threw him over the border.

This is not general knowledge, except
in gooseberry season, which reminds me, and at the table

I have been known to raise an eyebrow, or scoop the sorbet
into five equal portions, for the hell of it.
I mention this for a good reason.

Copyright © 2005 by Simon Armitage. From The Shout.

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.