The Oatmeal of Alford

My gran was right, of course, and a bowl of porridge really does seem to keep the cold out. Although I grew up on the South Coast, almost as far from Scotland as you can get in Britain, I learned to appreciate the connection between oats and golf. As a skinny kid, I’d be out straight after breakfast, playing golf in freezing, gale-force winds straight off the sea, with no weatherproof gear on.

The common oat was not introduced to Britain until the Iron Age, although it is thought to have existed in Europe since the Bronze Age. The oat was — and still probably is — the most important cereal in Scotland, due mainly to it being a hardy and resilient crop, able to survive in poorer soil and a harsher climate than cereals like wheat.