“Living on a Farm, there was Never a Dull Moment”

Sometimes before breakfast we would go rabbit shooting in dew-drenched fields. We rarely caught anything, but these early mornings often provided us with plush, pink-gilled, field mushrooms. Sometimes, we might find only one lonely fungus, but on other occasions it would be a little cluster, which would cause great excitement as we ran home through soaking grass to show off our haul. Looking back, there were all sorts of wild mushrooms around us. Small battalions of shaggy ink caps, as though on guard duty in the hedgerows, with their bearskin-like caps. I remember ‘Jew’s Ears’ growing out of the side of gnarled trees in dark woods scented by wild garlic. ‘Chicken o’ the Woods’ was another which roost e d in similar environs and, of course, we would encounter large inflated puffballs, sitting centre spot, waiting patiently for kick-off, which invariably never came. But as a boy, I never knew how delicious they were.