Canned peas, Boston Stump, and an Olympics medal-winner - Tony Cunnane's Afterthoughts

Written on 17 August 2011

I have just been browsing through my 1951 diary to see what happened this week 60 years ago and discovered that it was the week when I went away without my parents for the very first time.

I was in the 4th Form at Salford Grammar School and I went with a boy from the 5th form, Peter Ferrer. We both had a keen interest in classical music and often went to Hallé concerts at various locations in and around Manchester. We set off in Peter's parent's car at 7.35 and got to his Uncle and Aunt's farmhouse in beautiful Louth in rural Lincolnshire at 12.15 – 108 miles (no M62/M18 in those days of course). On arrival at the farmhouse, Peter’s Aunt was slaving away over a huge coal stove in a steaming hot kitchen preparing a typical Sunday roast lunch with all the trimmings (although we arrived on a Monday). I still remember vividly that she brusquely told Peter and me to keep out the way until lunch was ready otherwise "…the Yorkshire puddings will spoil – and we don’t want that do we?" Peter and I fled. Welcome to Louth!

Peter’s uncle had an important job at the adjacent United Canners’s factory which was surrounded by many fields of peas and blackcurrants   – and probably other fruits as well but I can’t now remember. (That factory has either gone out of business or been taken over by another company – Google has failed me for once!)

During our week-long stay Peter and I went around  the factory several times watching the how peas, delivered on the stalk direct from the fields, were   rapidly stripped from their pods, washed, sorted, and weighed - all done by hand by cheerful girls standing at rows of conveyor belts - and finally sealed  into cans by some clever automatic machines. The adverts couldn’t claim, "Never touched   by  hand" in those days!

One day Peter and I went to Boston on the train and of course climbed to the top of the famous Boston Stump. My diary records that our return ticket cost us  9s 4d each – that’s less than 50p in today’s money, but it seemed like a fortune to me. The train was very full because it was en route to London, but we did manage to get a seat.

The next day, 15 August 1951, the two of us went by bus to Lincoln – it went a long way round but the fare was cheaper than the train. We did the usual tourist things in Lincoln including climbing the 372 steps to the very top of the Cathedral tower. In the evening we were joined by Peter’s aunt and uncle and we all went to a sports meeting and saw E McDonald Bailey. I must have known he was someone important otherwise I would not have mentioned him in my diary (click here to read that page of my diary in a pop up window). I  had to look him up on the Internet just now to remind myself that he was a British sprinter who, almost exactly 12 months later, won the 100m Bronze medal at the 1952 Helsinki Athletics. Our reason for going to that sports meeting was to watch Peter’s cousin, Lionel, (about whom I can remember nothing at all!) compete.

Five months later Peter and I had a big falling out and we never spoke to each other again – although I was still at Salford Grammar School, where Peter was by then in the 6th Form, until I left Salford in December 1952. I have no idea what the row was about – nor who was to blame. If Peter reads this, I would be happy to make up before it’s too late!