An allotment where they make apple juice and play act

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column

Michael Commane

It nourishes the soul when we come across something that’s good and wholesome. There are nuggets in our lives that stand out, those moments when we see the wonder and genius of what people do.

I worked with a man in The Kerryman newspaper who fascinated me. He was an expert at his job, which meant he was forever correcting me when it came to page layout, which was not my forte. He’d shout across the office telling me I miscalculated the size of a picture. He mortified me. But he was great fun and I think I was able to take his ribbing. 

He took early retirement from the job and left the newspaper some short time before I did. We’ve stayed in contact. From time to time he’d tell me what he was doing, the books he was reading, his political views, and his involvement in a local drama group.

He’s a jovial man and never takes himself too seriously. Over the years he has told me that along with a few other men he had rented an allotment in the town. 

I never knew exactly what he did there besides drinking coffee and discussing how to run the world. 

My eyes were opened for me when by chance I visited the allotment last week. Three of them were in the process of making apple juice. It was an amazing operation to observe. Between the three of them they were cleaning the apples, mulching them, working a press and saving the waste, which they would pass on to a pig farmer. 

In some respects I had called at a bad time as they were in production mode, nevertheless they had time to make me a cup of coffee. And it was made and drunk in a glass dome-shaped room they use on occasion for putting on plays. 

I wandered around the allotments to see how every metre of ground is used to produce all sorts of edibles. And this right in the centre of a built up area. Of course their worry is that the Council might decide to sell it for housing. What a disaster that would be. I’m told one allotment for the year for unemployed persons is €20. I presume it’s the same for those who are retired.

On leaving the allotment I called into a friend of mine who has a bicycle shop some 400 metres away. I told him where I had been and he had no knowledge of such an enterprise. 

And that was something that struck me. So much goes on right in front of our noses or maybe just out of sight and we know nothing about it. With all our communication and all our instant digital news we seem out of touch with the wonders of our surroundings and the genius of the people who quietly work their minds and hands to do great things.

I’m always saying it’s the little things, those unnoticed, forgotten activities that make us and indeed, make the world a great place. 

Before leaving the allotment I was handed a bottle. Five minutes earlier I had seen the freshly-made apple  juice being poured into the bottle. Honestly, it was delicious.