Blast from the past: Childhood summer holidays were often spent cutting the grass with a manual mower
The school summer holidays were often spent in listless boredom, punctuated by petty squabbles with siblings, or setting up a stall outside the house to sell glasses of lukewarm lemonade to passers-by.
Summer chores, like cutting the grass and the promise of 20p for our efforts, would momentarily lift us out of our malaise.
In the 1970s we didn’t have an electric or petrol lawnmower. We had one of the yokes, pictured here, a very, very low tech manual mower that required no plugging in or fuel; the only power required was your push.
These days manicured and pristine lawns are becoming passé as we are encouraged not to mow as often, particularly during May, in a bid to save bees and other pollinators.
And, in keeping with all things eco, it seems manual mowers are back in vogue. Indeed, a colleague recently bought one, so alarmed was he at the price of new electric mowers. Talking about his new gizmo brought back memories of our clunky old manual machine. It was rusty and didn’t have a basket, so what should have been a quick job, turned into a full afternoon’s hard labour after one had mowed, then raked up all the clippings. The whirr of the neighbour’s nifty Flymo only added to the pain and confirmed that the grass could certainly be greener.