Potato picking week

Hi all - it would be great to hear your memories of spud picking week in Octobers of the past. In the 60's we lived in Keresley End and would go potato picking around Corley. I can remember assembling around the woods/Fivefield Road and being taken off in a truck - we could have been taken anywhere but always ended up in a field of potatoes! When I was 11 I was learning to play the recorder and desperately wanted one of my own. I worked solidly the whole week and earned the 13 shillings and sixpence needed for the really good one I wanted. My friend Rachel and I then went into town after school the following Monday to buy it - what a memory!

Hi Anne, and I bet you shared a few giggles whilst doing the spud picking. Mentioning Fivefield Road brought back some memories of my hubby's rellies, the Bucks, they lived in Fivefield Road and it was a nice walk to their place when visiting. Going back to the spud picking. There used to be some queer shaped ones dug up on our allotment years ago, not like today all spit and polished!!!!!

Hi Dreamtime! Yes, we had a good giggle and worked hard! Fivefield Road is still beautiful, I hope that the builders never get hold of it. I have so many memories of it! I think I'll start a new thread!

Back in 2012 the last post on this topic explained that 'Fivefield Road is still beautiful, I hope that the builders never get hold of it'. Now in 2026 the green fields of Fivefield Road are fast disappearing under the huge number of new houses that are being built in the Keresley area. I suppose that previous generations also looked on with dismay as the city expanded more and more and gradually swallowed up the surrounding villages. They say that it is called progress.

I say with sadness, 'or a sign of the times....'

About 1959/60, I was twelve. Stan, An older lad in our street, not too bright, suggested we might get taken on potato picking. We cycled from Bell Green to somewhere in the Keresley / Exhall area and enquired at a farm. The farmer said ten bob a day, five for the little un. We worked with a dozen or so other pickers, all morning, following the furrows. We knocked off for a break at dinner time to eat our pieces and the farmer brought some tea. Suddenly Stan jumped up and put his rucksack, full of spuds, on his shoulders and legged it. The farmer shouted after him but Stan got to his bike and raced off. We finished the day and the farmer gave us our money and a bag of spuds. He also gave me five bob for Stan. A very fair man.