Granny Marmalade

I see that it was three years ago when I wrote about marmalade before.  Then I concluded by saying “there may well come a time when I might try my hand at ‘proper’ marmalade-making.”  Well I am pleased to report that the time has come!

My Mum has always been the marmalade-maker.  But things being as they are she was not going to be getting the bus into town to buy Seville oranges on the market this year!  It was seeing a facebook post from a local farm shop advertising their oranges that prompted me to think that maybe we could have a go.

Mum wrote out her recipe for me and we duly went along to the farm shop and bought the oranges and lemons.  Three years ago I had wondered in my blog as to whether I might need a week off work to make marmalade, remembering from my childhood the laborious nature of chopping up the fruit.  However I hadn’t realised that latterly Mum has been using a liquidizer for the chopping part, which made it altogether more manageable.  I did offer to get some fruit for Mum, too, but at nearly 91 she feels that maybe it’s time to pass on the baton (or maybe the wooden spoon) so I will take her some of our jars.

Then it came to the labels. “There’s nothing quite like Granny’s marmalade” we used to say.  I dug out my Granny’s recipe book and saw that her recipe was basically identical, though a little less specific than Mum’s in the instructions.   And since I’ve now become a Granny myself, I decided I had to call it ‘Granny marmalade’.

But then I got to wondering – did my great grandmother also make marmalade? Would she have had access to Seville oranges? She lived in West Grinstead in Sussex.  Nowadays the village has no local shops, but at the turn of the century there were stores and the railway running through the village may have enabled fruit and veg to be transported quickly. The village store kept by the Tidey family near West Grinstead station was there by 1891, as can be seen from the census.  Mum couldn’t be sure about the marmalade, but she did know that her mother used to cycle from there into Horsham, where no doubt the fruit could be bought at the market or grocer’s to bring home to mother and I see from British History Online that a market also existed in nearby Partridge Green. 

I posted my ponderings on the Sussex Family History Group facebook site and was pleased to hear from one contributor that her ancestor was a “Foreign Fruit Seller”.    He imported fruit such as oranges in the early – mid 19^th century. She says that “the oranges came from Seville by boat and each year there was a race to land the first shipments, with a premium paid to the crew if they won. He advertised oranges to make marmalade and shrub (a drink) and that he would ship (presumably by rail) cases of them anywhere in the country”. Thank you to Cynthia for this very helpful detail! 

I noted three years ago the references to marmalade-making in my Granny’s 1937 diary when the production seemed to go on for days and days!  It started on Monday 18^th  January:  “cut up oranges in the evening”.  The following day:  “made marmalade and cut up more oranges evening”.  Wednesday 20^th:  “Dull and cold.  Made marmalade”.  Thursday 21^st:  “cutting up oranges after tea”.  Friday 22^nd:  “making marmalade and cakes morning…cut up more oranges after tea”.  Saturday 23^rd:  “made marmalade”.  And then a two-day respite before Tuesday 26^th:  “Did ironing, sitting room and shopping.  Cut up more oranges in evening”, and finally Wednesday 27^th:  “very cold east wind.  Made marmalade”.  I wonder where she stored all the jars and how long that lasted her family?  In 1938 and 1939 the production was similar.  By 1940, unsurprisingly, things were rather different.  The sole reference to marmalade was in helping her sister Pat to cut up oranges, as by then some of the family were living with her in Cowfold.  There are no references at all in 1941 or 1942 and the diaries for 1943 and 44 have not survived.  But by January 1945, the family now living in Guildford, things were looking up:  “Made marmalade from Sevilles from Moores.” (Moores in Guildford seems to be where Granny got their rations). The third batch was made at the beginning of February.

Well I don’t know that we’ve really got cupboard-space to store three batches of marmalade but, encouraged by last weekend’s success, I’ve just bought some more oranges at the local market this morning to make a second batch this weekend.  We need positive, creative things we can do at the moment, don’t we?  As we look back, let us also look forward with hope (and with cupboards well-stocked with marmalade).

Granny’s marmalade recipe

Ring out the old, ring in the new

And so we have finally seen the back of 2020.  Who could possibly have imagined this time last year what we were about to go through?  Quite apart from the anguish of serious illness and lonely deaths, and the long-term effects of this dreadful virus, many of our loved ones have been on their own for much of the year and none of us able to touch and hug and just be with those outside our household.  We are made as social beings, no matter what the undoubted positives of country walks and time in the garden.

So for me, perhaps THE highlight of my year has been the birth of my first grandchild and being able to HOLD her.  Since it is ok to form a support bubble with those with young children, we were able to do so with my daughter, son in law and new baby and have them stay with us for a few days leading up to Christmas.  What a special time.  I am in awe at how a three week old baby has the instinct to manoeuvre herself into something resembling a feeding position while being held by someone who is nevertheless incapable of providing what she seeks!   

The vulnerability of a newborn is something I’ve had in mind, too, as I managed to get a bit of time for family history research during this last week.  I’ve been picking up the threads of the Philpot(t) tree (my maternal great grandmother’s maiden name) and tracing the fortunes of Thomas Philpot b 1795 West Grinstead, Sussex, and his wife Emily Stringer b 1803 West Grinstead.  For some reason I have not established they moved east to Westmeston, to the quaintly titled dwelling of ‘Cottage on the hill’ where they brought up five children.  I have come across a number of small babies.  There was Peter George Philpott aged 3 months at the time of the 1861 census, living with his parents Peter and Susan and big sister Emily, aged 2.  Poor little Peter George was buried in August 1864 in Westmeston, Sussex, having succumbed to Typhus.  Then there is Mary Wenham Philpott baptised 3 August 1851 in Westmeston, baseborn to Frances.  There was something odd going on there.  Frances’ younger sister Mary had married John Wenham at the end of the previous year.  Was this his baby, or did he have a brother on the scene?  However, little Mary Wenham never had the opportunity to ponder her parentage as she was buried just three days later, aged 1 month.  All those families, though, doing the best they could for their children year in year out, just as we continue to strive to do.

The last few weeks have also inevitably led to reminiscences of how it was when our children were babies.  My granddaughter has had some very unsettled nights.  I remember many evenings when our eldest was a baby, having her in a baby sling and just walking her round and round.  If I stopped or tried to put her down she just cried.  And how technology has improved things!  You couldn’t just google your questions or have WhatsApp conversations with other young Mums for reassurance back then.  It was a very isolating experience, especially being a long way from parental help.

My own Mum is rightly proud of her new status as great grandmother, and has been busy phoning her friends with the news.  My godmother, now 90, related that she had been a very small baby and that her mother struggled at the beginning.  Apparently her doctor advised some fresh air and exercise and suggested she leave the baby at home to sleep while she went out! 

Talking of going out, Mum said that when she was a small child in Croydon her parents would go to the Watchnight service at the Parish Church at midnight on New Year’s Eve.  They would put the children to bed and tell them that’s where they were going and off they went!  She remembers the bells ringing at midnight.   “Ring out the old, ring in the new”.  I hadn’t realised where that phrase came from until the poem was read on the Archers on New Year’s Eve.  I thought how particularly appropriate the words are for this year of all years, so I have pasted it below.

May I take the opportunity to wish you a happy and above all a healthy New Year!

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
   The flying cloud, the frosty light:
   The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
   Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
   The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
   For those that here we see no more;
   Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
   And ancient forms of party strife;
   Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
   The faithless coldness of the times;
   Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
   The civic slander and the spite;
   Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
   Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
   Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
   The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
   Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Tennyson