English wild blackberries, or brambles have a unique flavour along with some interesting properties, as I will reveal later on. Unlike the big juicy cultivated variety they exude a strange bland sweetness tinged with spice, almost as if they had been stored next to the cinnamon sticks that had just allowed a little of their fragrance to permeate the berries.
Victorians used leaves and berries to dye long pieces of satin ribbon to tie sashes around little girls white voile dresses on Sundays, the delicate pale indigo would look stunning yet subtle.
Cordials, syrups, wine and tea can be made from this versatile little fruit as well as the favourite blackberry jam. The intoxicating smells of this in the making will forever bring memories of my childhood flooding back, just as the batch cooking on the stove right now is doing.

Hot heady days just after the war, when food was scarce and any fruit was much appreciated. We had not at that age even seen a real banana and no exotic fruit ever reached our little town for many years.

Off we would all go with mum, aunt Doll, cousins Joyce and Jack my brother and baby sister and me. All armed with baskets and bowls stuck inside brown carrier bags (no plastic in those days) The bus ride was a penny for us and 3 pence for the grown ups. We didn't travel so much back then so a bus ride, especially as we were allowed on top deck was a real thrill.
Off we would leap on arrival at the old common, dancing along in our summer frocks and pinnies, waving the baskets high in the air above the long seeding grasses. We looked like a swarm of cabbage whites.
Now for the game of picking the most, the biggest and the best…the competition among us was vicious as we all changed from sparkling white to bloody and smudgy purple. Our milky skins that mother was so proud of with the fine dusting of freckles had turned a filthy ruddy hue with great long scratches, some six inches long. We loved every minute on the blackberry picking days when we were allowed to 'go wild'.
Busy little fingers would pick pounds of fruit in that buzzing and chirping heat of long ago late summer days.
Sometimes a piercing shriek would go up from the bushes as one of us gently plucked a bee by mistake and one day, much to cousin jack's delight, a huge Adder shot out in front of mum and aunt Doll, causing them to drop all of their berries. Mum swore that was positively the very last time we would go blackberrying…but it was short lived.
On our return all the berries would be placed into the clothes-boiling pan and washed to get all the leaves and other bits off. They were then drained and allowed to come to the boil. After that an equal weight of sugar would be added with some lemon juice if we could get that, if not a few apples were quartered and added in a muslin bag to be removed later.
Father would supervise the operations, after all he had been chef to a General in the army, however I was never sure if his interference was that welcome judging by some of the strange words uttered behind the kitchen door!
Finally the fruits of our labours would be standing gleaming in a row of glass jars, all shapes and sizes with sparkly cellophane tops that, much to mum's annoyance, I could never resist touching.

Then would come the punishment, the most agonising event you could possibly imagine…..bath!
Oh! God the pain…the agony…the tears and the utter relief when it was over. The first swear word my little brother ever uttered was in the bath after a blackberry session. He wished he had born the pain because mum's flick with a wet flannel was deadly!
How did we ever get so many scratches, cuts and bruises…we did not even notice at the time? Boy did they sting in the soapy bath.

Tea that night would be so welcome. New laid eggs from the garden chickens, crusty bread and sometimes butter, with the small amount of warm jam that always seemed to be left over after all the jars were full.

These were not the big fat luscious berries you buy in the supermarkets today and in bad dry years they were utterly useless and horribly woody, but the best thing about a plentiful good year of brambles was the fact they were, like many other good things, free


Home made Blackberry Jam recipe

Ingredients
6 lb. blackberries
1/4-pint water
Rind and juice of 2 lemons
6 lb. sugar




Method
1. Put the cleaned fruit, the water and lemon rind and juice in the pan.

2. Simmer until the fruit is soft.

3. Stir in the sugar and boil rapidly until setting point is reached.

4. Remove from the heat, skim, pot, cover, and label.
Serving amount
Yield 10 lb

And something medieval!

To mayke a speciall water to heale the sores in the mouth and privie parts.

All these thynges put into a pot with water and infuse.
A handfulle of bramble leaves two spoonfuls of honey. The weight of two broad shillings of Alum, and a glass of white wine.
Thys mayketh a most excellent water to heale the sores in the mouth and does fasteneth the teeth.

From an old medieval recipe book