Saturday 12th May ’07

 

Vikkie, who had been in correspondence we me over the original Doddin we used to scrump, had given me the phone number of Betty who owned the Doddin. I gave her a call and a she was very amenable. She had been told by Mrs. Gibbs shortly before she died that the tree was special and was called a Doddin. I arranged to go and see the tree with an old “Webheath Gang” pal of mine Grant Petford. It turns out that Grant has been looking for a Doddin for years and had not come up trumps. He was under the impression that the Gibbs tree had long gone and the one he’d planted as a kid in his parents garden two doors down had also gone west. Mary said she was in all day on the 12th May so after a quick phone call to Grant I picked him up and set off on the short journey to Betty’s house in Heathfield Road. Betty was there to greet us as we walked down her garden path. Grant and I went round the back and there was the tree. Taller than we remembered (or was it that we’d grown). We chatted, had a few photos taken and took some cuttings. Grant was to try sticking some twigs in the ground to see if they took and I tried four little hardwood cutting in rooting powder kept in polythene bags. Grant was overjoyed to see the tree just where he’d remembered it.

 

Paul Dyson put a piece in The Standard’s letter column saying he had two Doddins on his allotment and I was welcome to go and see them. I gave him a call and picked him up down Brockhill and drove back past my house to the allotments nearby. We parked up and strolled over the allotments to his patch and there were the trees. One obviously growing on a rootstock as there were the unwanted suckers growing up from below. (If you look at the photo you can see them amongst the leaves of the Doddin.) Paul said he always removes them whenever they appear. Paul said there was once another Doddin that grew on a patch that the prospective owner was told by Paul that if he took on the patch he was, under no circumstance, to remove the tree as it was the rare Doddin. The man agreed then promptly cut the tree down because it was in the way! Se searched incase it had re-grown but we couldn’t find any evidence at all. Pity. Paul came back to my house, which he’d visited before as it had belonged to a former friend and fellow allotment owner. He met Jacky and sat in the garden drinking tea with us talking about growing and allotments. Very pleasant evening. I took Paul home and promised to keep the Doddin name going.