Mother's Home Brew

by Colin Maller

After church on summer evenings the whole family would go for walks through the district. In season we would note where the best wild fruits and flowers were.

Mother made homemade wine out of everything that grew: dandelions, cowslips, rose hips, elder flowers end elder berries, blackberries, sloes, wheat and barley, rhubarb and potatoes, apples, pears and gooseberries. she boiled the fruit, or whatever, in the copper and then ladled it out into a large earthenware container.A piece of yeast from the baker was added and it was left to ferment.

After a while it was strained through a cloth and bottled, but not corked. It continued to 'work' for a long time and the bottles had to be topped up. The dregs from the pan were thrown onto the garden and the sparrows came down to  eat their fill, and became too drunk to fly away.

Mother would sit in the chair and say, "I don't knw what's come over me, I feel quite dizzy."

Mother was against drinking and alcohol, and refused to believe that anything she made was other than a cordial When Father went to the club for a pint of beer, she was displeased, but she would ive us children a small tumbler of her wine to go to bed. I'm sure we had more alcohol in our blood than poor old Dad when he came home

When the bottles were finally corked they were put in the cupboard under the stairs. If they had been corked too early there would be a big bang - usually in the middle of the night -  and we would open the door to find the cupboard spattered with wine and broken glass.

Father would say, "That must have been some potent brew, Mother." But Mother would keep her own counsel and just clean up the mess,