My friend had frequently spoken of the allotments, so I told him that I had one on Clapham Common, and should be working there on a certain evening at five o’clock. We thereupon determined that, if the Food Controller would turn away his face—a very stern face in those days (1918)—we would give ourselves the pleasure of taking tea on the appointed evening with our genial friend who had brought the country to the town.
The evening of our little picnic tea-party came round, and, seated by one of the fences on the Common, heedless of the scores of folk within a stone’s throw, we sat and chatted. The sheep had recently been shorn at Finchley, and in a few weeks the flock would be dispersed to buyers. Then he would be going back home. Though he liked London, he “wad na be sorry to get back to Aberdeenshire.” There he had his house, a cow, and a pony. The pony was very useful to him in his work. But the climate? Well, that was variable, but “’twas na sa bad as folk think, not even, farther north, in Sutherland.” He remembered one day, when he was living near Cape Wrath, finding “the snow several feet deep in the morning, but at night, save for some small patches, one could not tell that there had been a fall of any kind.” In fact, the weather there was not of serious concern, but if, by chance, a blizzard threatened, he went out and drove his sheep under the shelter of the rocks.