Kelvedon Wonder
This is the time of year when I start checking out the seed merchants in search of a particular species of pea. After a time I usually find what I'm looking for, a brand called Merveille de Kelvedon in French and Kelvedon Wonder in English. It's not that I have any intention of sowing the seeds but the world is not right until my eyes alight on them.
Kelvedon is just down the road from where I used to live and it is next door to the village of Feering where my parents once lived in rented accommodation as a newly-married couple. Kelvedon is on the main line from Liverpool St to Colchester, Ipswich and Norwich, but the light railway that used to run from here down to Tollesbury on the Essex marshes has long since vanished. Curiously enough, there is a Kelvedon Rd very near my daughter's house in Fulham.
When I first came out to France, I made a point of ordering the Thompson and Morgan seed catalogue, certainly the glossiest and most voluminous of all the brochures. There was no prospect of buying any of the products as we were living in a flat in Lyon at the time, but in my view perusing the contents of these catalogues is the best part of gardening. I was particularly struck by a revolutionary type of sweet pea called Snoopy. I wonder if that is still available today, but not to the extent of going to bother of looking it up on the Internet.
All my life, to paraphrase Charles de Gaulle, I have had a certain idea about brochures, deeming them superior to the things they are depicting, and not just in the realm of gardening. In my youth, tourist offices, cruise ships, encyclopaedias and the like, were more lavish in their literature than they are today when they increasingly resort to the cheap option of the Internet - something which, in the parlance of the time, I would have dismissed as a "swiz". The French Tourist Office was particularly lavish in its gifts, sending me a 45 rpm record highlighting the delights of Paris. I doubt if they would be so generous today.
Best of all was the brochure supplied by Swan Hellenic Tours, still going strong today though I imagine the guest speakers have been updated since the days of Kenneth Clark and Maurice Bowra.
Do you remember how Mose and the aunts looked forward to receiving their Dobie's(sp?) vegetable seed catalogue shortly after Christmas? This wasn't quite in the same league as the colourful brochures you mention but I think gave them just as much pleasure - plus they did actually do some ordering from it!
ReplyDeleteFor myself, most of my overseas holidays have been of the vacarious ilk, and I found if I perused the colourful brochures for long enough I did feel I had been to wherever and eventually had enough of looking. Sadly most of these brochures are now more and likewise at least some of the companies involved. The internet really doesn't cut the mustard here.
Coda 0
ReplyDeleteStap me sir, Dobie's still exist, AND they have Kelvedon Wonder!
The biggest surprise for me, though, is that they now include colourful pictures of their products.
One up for the internet where I discovered this.
I had forgotten about Dobies! Hursts was another one, I think.
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