A Gull on the Roof by Derek Tangye Page A

Bristol was very good.’ Jeannie would suggest Covent Garden. ‘After all,’ she reasoned, ‘the West End restaurants surely want Cornish new potatoes and should be ready to pay a decent price.’ But a few moments later: ‘What about Glasgow – the man with one arm said it topped all the other markets last week.’ ‘All right,’ I would reply, ‘We’ll send to Glasgow.’ There would be a pause while I hooked another chip on to the crook of the spring balance. ‘Of course there’s all that extra freight to think of,’ Jeannie would murmur, ‘Oh, hell,’ I would answer, ‘let’s send to Birmingham.’ We would pack the chips into the Land Rover, make out the invoice and despatch note, and I would drive to Penzance station. And there, as I waited my turn to unload, doubts would arise again for I would see some farmer of great experience and ask him where he was sending. ‘Liverpool – I always send north at this time of the season.’
    Our indecision could be blamed on inexperience, but as the years passed the guesswork has continued. Growers despatch their produce to the market, and then, like punters, hope for the best, and storm with irritation when they back the wrong town. There is no way of gauging the see-saw of demand. A salesman said to me once: ‘Cardiff is going to be very strong at the beginning of next week. I’ll take all that you can dig.’ We hired extra labour and sweated through the weekend until we had one ton of potatoes to despatch on Monday and off they went to Cardiff. Three days went by and I received no sales returns – and when sales returns are delayed, it is usually an ominous sign. They came a week later and the price, as by then I had expected, was disastrous. I did not see the salesman again till the end of the season when he appeared at the door to ask for seven chips, the balance of those his firm had sold me and for which I had not paid the price of 9d. each. ‘They’re broken,’ I said truthfully, but grimly, remembering Cardiff. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you’ll have to show them to me, or pay.’ That was enough. I burst. Jeannie and I had worked for a month in the manner of peasants of a hundred years ago, and we were exhausted both with potatoes and salesmen. ‘Get out of my sight,’ I yelled, ‘go down the cliff and find them yourself.’ I have never seen him again.
    There are the same lottery selling methods for flowers. Except on special occasions such as Christmas, Easter and Mothering Sunday, no one seems to have a clue when flowers will or will not be wanted. I have had a telegram from a salesman at 10 a.m. saying, ‘Market is glutted,’ and another, two hours later from the same man saying, ‘send all you can.’ There was one February week when the weather in Cornwall reminded one of the Alps. The St Buryan road was impassable with drift snow, no buses could climb the hill out of Newlyn, and the flowers, of course, were unpickable. Yet we ourselves did have a meadow of Magnificence daffodils growing close to the sea which were bravely coming into flower although the ground was white around them. ‘We ought to get five shillings a bunch for these,’ I said to Jeannie. We proudly picked, bunched and packed them, two boxes with fifteen bunches in each, and then set about thinking how we were going to get to Penzance. We had been cut off from the main road for five days but, propelled by the excitement of our achievement, we spent five hours digging away a track for the Land Rover; and when we reached the station we were greeted as conquering heroes by the porters. ‘Nothing going away at all,’ said Owen, who was head porter on the flower train platform, ‘nothing at all.’ Three days later we received our sales returns and scribbled across the bottom were the words: ‘Sorry, it’s too cold for the buyers.’ The price was sixpence a bunch.
    There are, too, the hazards provided by British Railways. I have known a consignment of our potatoes