Scottish Berry Pickers

When our older boys were small, Heather, my babysitter would join folk from Dundee who arrived in battered buses to pick berries. Equipped with a small, brightly coloured plastic basket with a collapsible handle, the berry pickers worked hard; up and down the drills from dawn until dusk on a fair weather day.The gang master would bellow to 'picke'em clean' and Heather saved her earnings (by the basket) to buy her school uniform. Sookin Berries by the traveller, Jessie Smith is a lovely book for junior readers.
Twenty years later, we are told that Scots didnae want to pick berries but in my experience this isn't quite the truth. My boys are willing but not every berry producer is happy to employ them. We suspect that it is cheaper to use the Eastern European migrant workers.... if a caravan that my GP husband visited a sick patient in, is anything to go by, these workers are happy to put up with grim living conditions.

Over to a guest edit by Xavier and Alasdair my sun kissed Berry Boys of 2010



Down at the Berries by Xavier

My brother Alasdair and I are working on a berry field down the lane for a couple of weeks. We are working on a machine which shakes all of the berries from the hedge and our job is to get rid of the green ones and the leaves. At the beginning, the machine was a bit faulty and kept stopping. This enraged our employer, who drives the machine and is called James. He is a really nice guy and he has quite a gentle voice, but that all changes when he swears. His brother Tom would say “Don’t worry, James loves this machine really.” We would then hear James say to himself “I f***in’ hate this machine.”

Now, the machine is working a lot better.

We had a Latvian guy with a shaven head working with us for a few days. He was very useful as, because Alasdair had lost his phone and neither of us ever brought watches, he was the only one who had the time. So when one of us was bored on the machine we could just ask Oscar the time and the response would be “four and six” or something of the sort in a Latvian accent.

However, he could not work on Sunday so we had a Lithuanian guy work for a day. He had scars on his face and smoked whenever we had a minute off. He scared me. Whenever I looked up I would happen to be looking at him. Then he would look at me and I knew that he would be thinking “that weird kid’s f***ing staring at me again.” I can’t put on a Lithuanian accent on when I’m typing and not saying it.
Our job is not difficult, but it is very monotonous. All you need is a good imagination so you can just think away about any random rubbish. However, it seems that whenever I am down there a good imagination always evades me. I end up thinking about the same things and singing the same songs in my head (or out loud) over and over again. When I sing songs out loud, usually I will look up and see James looking back at me strangely from driving the machine and the feeling is really awkward.

Berry Picking by Alasdair

In years gone past, a British past time in the summer was picking berries with events like Wimbledon being famous for strawberries. Nowadays, the berry farms are run as industries and most of the workers are migrants.
For the past few days I have been putting on my boots with my little brother and trudging down to our local fields and working on the back of a berry harvester. The machine was made in 1996 but runs like it was in the 1960 or an old banger. It also has the reliability of a machine made in the 1960s with the machine breaking about 11 times in the first 4 days we worked there.
The machine looks like a fire engine with a big gap in the in the middle. In the gap there are four rolls with long bristles a bit like a tooth brush; these shake the bushes and the raspberries fall off. These are then collected by a conveyer belt with a bucket.The berries then go into another conveyer belt which goes up a pipe and then it goes out on to another conveyer belt which is at the top of the machine. This is where I come in, because the conveyer belt is out in the open I am able to pick off the green berries, leaves and insects.... especially caterpillars. It's Ok berry juice is red...

When you've been working for 10 to 12 hours keeping your mind occupied is a struggle. Three things that popped into my mind were “No I’ve left the bread for yesterday, in the oven.” “I’ve lost my phone.” “How do they make scotch eggs?”

In July, their mother has a one track berry recipe mind. Here is child friendly Pink Lemonade and a delicious yoghurt ice-cream.




Raspberry and Basil Ice-Cream
Serves 4
What to find:

300g raspberries
75g caster sugar (to taste)
4 tbsps 0% fat Greek yogurt
Tbsp shredded basil leaves

What to do:
1. Put the raspberries and sugar in a bowl and leave for 10 minutes. Blitz in a food processor (and sieve into a bowl, if you want to remove the raspberry seeds.)
2. Add four tablespoons of Greek yogurt (reduced fat) and the shredded basil leaves to the purée and mix together.
3. Put the mixture into an ice-cream maker and churn until frozen.


Alternatively: If you don’t have an ice-cream machine
1. Put the ice-cream into a wide, freezer proof container, cover and place in the coldest part of the freezer. After 45 minutes the sides will have frozen but the middle will still be soft. Mix the ice-cream with a fork and then beat well until it is the same thickness. Return the container to the freezer.
2. After 45 minutes repeat step one.
3. After a further 45 minutes take the container from the freezer and repeat step one for a third time and return to the freezer until frozen – (check after 30 minutes) and enjoy.

It is important to use ripe fruit.
©Fiona Bird