The Longest Carrot ( VILLAGE TALES EP. 11 )

The forthcoming village produce show is all that anyone talks about, 

but why is it so important for Bernard to keep winning the Longest Carrot?

 Was a chance remark about his ‘manhood’. Surely not.

Gardening is not something in which I have much expertise. Indoors they perish by drought or flood, outdoors I am on safer ground, literally. Anything which bothers to grow and enhances my small cottage garden has permission to continue. Provided they don’t overcrowd me or their neighbours. I generally leave them alone as my assistance could be fatal. 

Next door lives a retired horticulturist having worked some years in a university, it is with some envy that I look upon her pots and borders, but I am mindful that gardening is a pursuit in which you make a rod for your own back. It takes only a few seconds to plant something, but a lifetime to keep it thriving, or in my case just alive. It’s a dedication I don’t have, unlike Bernard Jeffries who takes gardening to another level.

Bernard lives for gardening, actually he lives for success and his metier is vegetables. Unlike my horticulturist neighbour, Constance, he doesn’t enjoy his garden. His garden is a laboratory, a research facility where experiments are carried out in the never ending pursuit of the biggest marrow or the largest onion, but even these are small beer when it comes to his all consuming passion, the carrot, and in particular, its length.

From an upstairs window I can see into Bernard’s garden. Villages are not designed, they grow organically, sometimes interlocking like jigsaw puzzles. Part of Bernard’s garden runs along the end of Constance’s and the contrast is revealing. There is very little colour in his garden other than green, and much that is concealed beneath glass or plastic.There are devices and tubes that would shame most intensive care units, in fact his is the gardening version of an ICU. Adjacent to this ‘intensive care garden’ a footpath meanders alongside the back of several gardens and whereas Constance’s access is marked by a rose covered archway, Bernard’s high fence and barbed wire are there to deter any uninvited scrutiny. It is not the general public Bernard fears but his competitors.

Success concerning vegetables in general is conceded to the Reverent Passlode, the shared vicar, some claiming, unfairly, that it’s because he has more time to spend in his garden due to his only working one day a week. This ignores the fact that most ‘show’ gardeners are retired.

Dave at the Drum was witness to what made the longest carrot the subject of such competition between Bernard and his fierce competitors, that were once close friends.

‘It goes back some years,’ Dave told me, ‘one market day, when Bernard and his mates had been drinking all afternoon, the conversation became a bit smutty.

‘Not unusual,’ I pointed out.

‘Well’ Dave continued, ‘they’d been talking about the produce show and what they might enter. They started giggling and whispering so me being curios I got closer wiping down some tables. They were behaving like kids picking a vegetable and who they thought it looked like, and vice versa.’

‘Go on,’ 

‘Well, you know Beverley . .’ 

‘Yeh, she’s quite . . ‘

‘Exactly, she’s a big girl. They said she would be certain to win the marrows prize. Course they all started giggling again. So they were going through the various classes and making jokes until it got to the longest carrot. One of them said Tommy was a dead cert. cos he had five kids, and then another said Bernard would be a shoe-in for smallest Radish, if there was such a class. as he didn’t have any. Cue more giggling. Well, Bernard didn’t think it funny, and said he’d show ‘em.’

‘Show em?’

‘It was all forgotten about until the following produce show when Bernard wins the longest carrot.’

‘How long ago was this?’

‘About five years, I see two or three on market days, but not Bernard. Out of spite each year they all compete in the longest carrot and whoever wins claims to be the most, what shall I say . . ?’

‘Virile?’

‘That’ll do, so far it’s been Bernard, by a mile, well a foot or so.’

Maybe Bernard had a personal problem, maybe he didn’t, but I could see Bernard’s determination to grow the longest carrot was more to do with proving himself, rather than any gardening ambition. It’s easier to accept what ‘front’ people present, and not consider what fragility they may be hiding.

Adjacent to the village hall there is a field on which we have our annual summer fete and other events but towards the end of August a large marquee being erected heralds the village produce show. People of all ages are represented and will have been preparing their entries for months, if not years. Of over a hundred classes in the programme the majority are open only to entries that are edible, of those at least half are for vegetables and of those the prize for the longest carrot has become the most coveted.

On the day before the big event Bernard was feverish with activity. As dusk concealed his preparations from prying eyes I was witness to the drain-pipes down which the mammoth carrots had been growing. In girth they may have been little more than a supermarket carrot, but in length, many times longer.

Entries had to be in place by 9.30 for judging to start at ten, in secret. Bernard arrived with his contribution at 9.20 and left the marquee with a satisfied grin as some late comers dashed in with their entries, none, to Bernard’s satisfaction, carrying anything resembling a carrot. 

During the judging which took at least two hours, it was customary to retire to the Drum and for Bernard to go through the formality of appearing apprehensive while nursing the delight of another victory, one that would eventually put the ‘smallest radish’ comment onto the garden compost of history. 

Returning a little worse for wear at 12.30 the Marquee was full. The four expert judges stood together resplendent in their gardening regalia, members of this national society, or that, chair of one gardening organisation or another. Then the results began to be announced. Children’s and young persons classes, cooking classes, flowers, and then down to the serious business, of vegetables. Three of these, two of those, a something or other, a basket of, a bunch of , each class having a winner, and a second prize, and a third. 

‘There’s only one prize,’ Bernard would say, ‘and that’s first prize, anything else is failure.’

At last, and finally, the longest carrot. Bernard checked his way to the platform, straighten his tie and cleared his throat. The Longest Carrot Cup was brought forward ready to be presented and two press photographers moved in ready to capture the moment.

Lady Blythe moved to the front holding the card on which was bound to be Bernard’s name. Bernard took a deep breath, so did Lady Blythe,

‘Winner of this year’s longest carrot, a truly extraordinary entry, I am very pleased to announce goes to . . . ‘

And like all television quiz hosts, she pauses for effect.

‘Mr. Reginal Cleverley . . ‘

There was a sharp intake of breath that apparently was heard at the pub, a moment of disbelief followed, then a resounding crash as Bernard fell backwards collapsing a table on which were a dozen or more trifle entries creating one large trifle, in the middle of which Bernard rested unconscious. Constance, who I’ve mentioned is my neighbour, appeared from nowhere and administered some first aid thinking that Bernard was bleeding profusely from a head injury but it turned out to be Strawberry Compot which had been disqualified due to it not really being a trifle.

The tender care exhibited by Constance stirred forgotten feelings in Bernard . She accompanied him home ensuring he was quite well, and the two have been inseparable ever since. Their two gardens have now a common gateway and there is much more colour in Bernard’s garden than ever there was before. He still grows carrots but no longer enters them into the show. Having heard their mutual garden gate creaking late at night he no longer has  need to worry about the size of his carrots.

Oh! Perhaps I should tell you, Mr. Cleverly’s winning carrot was 26 feet long. He entered it as a joke as he found it near the well in his garden. The root had entered the well and had grown down round and round in the search of water. On the table it looked just like a ball of string which the judges had to unravel before they could measure it.

 

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Written and read by Barkley Johnson.