An Apple Poem A Day... continued

This poem encapsulates what Apple Day is all about - to celebrate what is local and distinctive, to campaign against supermarket homogeneity, and to enjoy the variety of English apples!

If you want to find out more about English varieties, you can access the recent BBC4 programme here.

The Apple War By U. A. Fanthorpe

The storm troops have landed

The red and the green,

Their pips on their shoulders,

Their skin brilliantine.

Uniform, orderly,

Saleable, ambitious -

Gala and Granny

And Golden Delicious.

Quarter them, they’re tasteless;

They’ve cotton-wool juice,

But battalions of thousands                                                                                                      

Routinely seduce.

In shy hen-haunted orchards

Twigs faintly drum,

Patient as partisans

Whose time has almost come,

From Worcester and Somerset,

Sussex and Kent,

They’ll ramble singing,

A fruity regiment.           

Down with Cinderella’s kind,

Perfect toxic, scarlet;

Back comes the old guard

Costard, Crispin, Russet.

James Grieve, Ashmead Kernel,

Coppin, Kingston Black -

Someone has protected them.

They’re coming back.