Chapter 19: Mushrooms
White mushroom (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
At this time, my brother Bob was the head groundsman at the school playing field opposite our house, a job that had previously been held by my father. One day, Bob came in from the field holding what looked like a large piece of fungus. He showed it to my father who announced that it was an excellent mushroom and he asked if there were any more. Indeed there were.
These mushrooms had suddenly appeared over an area of about forty square yards. They were white, each about the size of the palm of the hand and they were wonderful to eat. There were more than we could eat. Bob had mentioned the mushrooms to a friend, one Emeris Smith. The Smith Family had a large greengrocery near the Swan public house at Tottenham High Cross. Mushrooms had not been seen in shops for years. The Smiths offered to buy all that Bob could supply and they offered him ten shillings a pound. This was a fortune.
The field between the house at Trulock Road and the Spurs ground.
At the time, I was doing a paper round and was supplied with a shoulder bag to carry the papers. This bag would be filled every morning and then taken up to High Cross.
This went on for some weeks, but finally they stopped growing never to be seen again.
Next chapter: Chapter 20: Under Canvas
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The taste of field mushrooms!! Like blackberries we used to pick them in the fields but now, in Australia, we buy cultivated mushrooms, still tasty but not quite the same.