1. At dinner my neighbour at table … mentioned that her father had been told by Bromsgrove [Worcestershire] people that ‘strawberries are always best on St John the Baptist Day’. In fact he used to go to Bromsgrove on 24 June and return home laden with strawberries which were grown in the Bromsgrove are [Stowbridge, West Midlands, June 1990].

Images: main, Harpenden, Hertfordshire; April 2015; inset, floral tribute in St Mary Cray Cemetery, London Borough of Bromley, as this cemetery contains many travellers’ (gypsies’) graves, presumably the tribute refers to gypsies’ traditional seasonal work as fruit pickers, September 2022.