I remember a day when my Mum and all of her family were in despair. The centuries-old Kent fruit farms were being grubbed up and replaced with other crops because no-one would buy our apples any more. Farmers all over the garden of England were turning up their toes because of the French invasion. Le Crunch? Pah. Tasteless and horrible.

I ALWAYS make a point of buying British apples because I saw the way that East Kent was changed. The farms that my Mum, her siblings and all of her aunts had picked fruit on for years were not the places they once were. Even I picked fruit in Kent as a small child. I loved our school summer holidays when we’d take packed lunches of corned beef sandwiches and milky coffee off to the farm where my sister and I, along with my mum, her sisters and my nan would pick blackcurrants all day. We got paid by the punnet. For Jan and I it was a way of earning a bit of pocket money and it meant my mum could carry on working during the school holidays because she didn’t need to stay at home to look after us if we were working alongside her. To this day, the scent of blackcurrant bushes evokes powerful and wonderful memories for me.

It was Henry VIII who turned Kent into the garden of England. He was worried about the country’s food security so he set up Kent as the place where fruit would be grown. I suppose you could say then that Kent reverted back to pre-royal intervention. BUT Henry VIII ruled in the first half of the 16th Century and therefore Kent has been the garden of England for 500 years.

When we went back to Kent for the first time in years I detected a change. I saw fields of hops and fruit that I can’t remember seeing for years and years. All I can remember is years of doing the journey in the car with my mum saying things like “look – there’s another orchard gone”.

Today my heart swelled with pride when I picked up two punnets of cherries with Union Flags on them and saw that the farm where they were grown was in East Kent. And do you know what? These cherries are as sweet as can be and in every sense their great taste is a tribute to the men and maids of Kent who have planted new orchards and refused to be bowed by their bad fortune in the 1970s and 1980s. I salute the grower of these beautiful fruits and look forward to many more such delicious treats.

BTW – a historical note, for those not familiar with the term - men and maids of Kent are those, like my own wonderful mum and all of her family, who come from east of the Medway. If you come from west of the Medway you are a Kentish man or maid. It’s a small but significant difference.