Jo Lewis in bluebells

I've just read the report on whether picking Bluebells is illegal and felt I had to write about when I was a child growing up in Wrington.

I lived in Lawrence Road and every year my sisters, brother and myself used to love going out in the nearby fields to pick bunches of primroses, bluebells or cowslips. I can still remember the joy of seeing a mass of yellow under a hedgerow, or the blue haze of bluebell wood. One of the fondest memories is of one day, taking my younger brother and sister 'primrosing'.

We were only two fields away from our home and Mark saw the yellow flowers lining the hedgerow at the top of the field. He ran as fast as his little legs would go and wouldn't heed our warning. What we knew, and he didn't, was that there was a 'boggy' patch before you got to the hedgerow and before we could stop him he was minus one of his little red wellies - it was stuck fast in the mud!

When we got home, Mum would always make up some smaller bunches of the wild flowers, for us to give to any elderly neighbours to brighten their day. Although I can understand the need for conservation, in recent years there appears to have been a substantial increase in wild flowers growing in the hedgerows (especially on the roadside verges). I do think it's a shame that our children or grandchildren may not experience that joy of being able to take something home to Mum, or Grandma, that they hadn't had to ask for money to buy!

So much of what we maybe took for granted, when we were young, is being lost and I, for one, look back with great nostalgia to our many trips 'across the fields' and the 'treasures' we found.

I might add that we never willfully pulled a plant out of the ground and cannot remember ever being told by Mr Marshall that we weren't allowed to pick the wild flowers or to get off his land. So much in the world today is prohibited and I think maybe the act of prohibiting may breed contempt. Am I alone in thinking that those days of the 50's/60s were definitely 'the best'!