New Life

from Jacqueline

It’s my favorite time of year on this side of the pond, and pretty much anywhere I’ve ever been, to tell you the truth. It’s springtime, with new lambs gamboling across the patchwork-quilt fields that surround my parents’ house, and the woodlands are carpeted with primroses, bluebells and delicate white wood-anemones – and the weather is perfect, with bright sunshine and just a hint of a nip in the air, which makes for great hikes across the countryside. You see, I’m a country kid at heart, despite the buzz I get from being in New York, or the fact that I could wander the streets of London for hours, and that I love San Francisco with a passion. This is where I began, and Easter happens to be the holiday closest to my heart. And it’s not just because Britain is chocolate-Easter-egg-central. It’s special, you see, because it’s the time of new life, and the land is just about bursting with it.



There’s one particular Easter that sticks in my mind from childhood. It was close to the end of term, coming up on the Easter of my ninth year, when Mrs. Boulding, our class teacher, asked us all to bring an egg or two to school because we would be “blowing eggs.” This amounted to almost organized anarchy. We pierced the egg at each end with a pin, then blew the yolk and white out of one end to be left with an empty shell. Then we had to varnish the eggs to strengthen the shell before decorating them. I still remember it – what a lark! There were kids covered in egg contents everywhere. But the thing I remember most was our local vicar, coming into the classroom for a special lesson afterwards.

Being a parish school (most local schools in England were, historically, founded by the church), there were still links with the local church, so the Reverend Bradshaw came in once a term to talk to each class. Most of us gazed out of the windows across the fields, or passed notes back and forth, or you’d suddenly feet the whack of a marble on the back of your head and you scowled at the culprit before sending a note back that you would get him later. And all the while the poor old reverend was oblivious to what was going on in the classroom.

But on this day, about half-way through his soliloquy he had our undivided attention. He began speaking about the meaning of Easter, about new life, and what it truly meant, and as he did so he picked up one of the eggs. But it wasn’t an empty egg, its contents already blown into the glass bowl. No, this was an egg ready to crack and splatter the man with yuk if he grasped it any harder, and not one child moved, watching that egg as he waved it around while he talked of Easter and the miracle of life. We were all a bit disappointed when he made a clean getaway after the lesson.

We broke up for the holiday that afternoon – my decorated egg was in bits by the time I’d walked home. The following day – Good Friday – after a breakfast of Hot Crossed Buns (traditional Good Friday treat, a bit like a current bread roll with a pastry cross on the top, if you haven’t had them – and they’re best hot or toasted, hence the name), my brother and I went down to the farm with our mother and the other women who worked on the land.



When I was a child, there weren’t many jobs around in rural areas for women who needed to work, but wanted a bit of flexibility because they had children. Farm work was pretty much the only option where we lived, so not only did my mother work on the farm, but from the age of about six, that’s where I earned my pocket money too.

It was freezing cold with snow on the ground, and the job in hand was that of gathering spent hop bines into big mounds and then burning them – and already the bright green shoots of new hops were bursting through. All the kids were working because everyone wanted to get home, and it was nasty work as hop bines can scratch your hands and arms to shreds, especially old ones that had been sitting around throughout the winter. The fact that it was bitter outside didn’t help, so it was a tired group of women and children who made their way slowly up the lane late that afternoon, with the light fading and snow falling around us.



Our silence was broken when my mother shouted at us to stop, because in the field right next to the lane, a ewe was in the midst of giving birth. At first the women were worried that she was in trouble, but then the lamb began to be born, and we all drew nearer to watch. I’ll never forget that Good Friday, that last snow of the year as it fell around us, a motley group watching a lamb coming out into the world, the mother licking her newborn onto unsteady legs, then both of them taking cover under the hedge. I was told to run back to fetch the farmer, because more hay would be needed before the night was out, and at least one new lamb had to be brought in from the cold.



Though I can hardly claim to have had great philosophical thoughts as a nine-year-old, I remember thinking, in the darkness of my room that night as the snow pattered against the windowpanes, about the Reverend Bradshaw and what he said about new life, and what it all meant. I thought about that tiny lamb coming to its feet, and what a wonder it was to see it born.

I thought about it again today, as I was driving along the country lanes, looking out to the fields, seeing the newborn lambs on unsteady legs.



So, I wish you a lovely Easter time, and here’s to new life, and everything that means, no matter how old you are, or what time of year it is in your part of the world.

To send this email to a friend, please click on the envelope icon below. And here’s a chocolate Easter egg: