1. I was born in 1926, so my childhood extended from that date until about 1940. I spent my childhood in a village in mid Oxfordshire. The latex in the stems and leaves of sun spurge was used on warts. The latex when set was supposed to stifle the wart by not allowing it to breathe. I have cured my own warts by using this method [Letchworth, Hertfordshire, May 2001].

2. I grew up in west Somerset between 1914 and 1939 … the milk from sun spurge was widely used to remove warts [Breage, Cornwall, October 1993].

Images:  main, Hackbridge station, London Borough of Sutton, August 2014; inset, The Black Country Living Museum, Dudley, West Midlands, September 2015.