Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

With summer long gone and winter on the horizon, we are firmly entrenched in the ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’, as John Keats described it in his ode ‘To Autumn’. We used this line, which perfectly encapsulates October & November in the British Isles, to inspire some of our founding story writers. The range of images and memories that they wrote about was wonderful.

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, // And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core

One writer told us about childhood memories of picking blackberries and apples in the countryside and making them into her grandfather’s favourite steamed suet puddings. She also recalled finding richly flavoured horse mushrooms that would then be poached in milk or fried. This was back in the 1940s and 50s, when growing potatoes and harvesting apples from the garden were essential for the winter and families stored them carefully in cold places, like under the bed.

Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, // Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours

Many of our writers described harvest festivals and bonfire night activities. Interestingly, Hallowe’en was not a tradition in their English childhood. They described preparing their Guy, collecting money for fireworks and wood for bonfires (after the war when they were allowed again). They also talked about baking potatoes in the ashes and cooking mouth-blisteringly hot, singed sausages.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they? // Think not of them, thou hast thy music too

Another writer enjoyed thinking about the coming solstice and the associated druidic and Celtic traditions. Indeed, a couple of people commented that they see autumn as a time of looking forward and preparing for the next year. This is particularly important for gardeners – ‘the plants bedded in now will flower in the spring’, as one writer put it. Not every writer thinks of autumn colours and flavours with pleasure, however; for some, it simply means the end of the year, longer nights, colder days, and winter.

Until they think warm days will never cease, // For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells

The issues of autumn this year were also on people’s minds – the fuel crisis, climate conference, and how much harder life might be for people this winter, as well as in the future.

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep // Steady thy laden head across a brook

For one writer, the word ‘mellow’ really stood out and it made him think of things beyond the autumn that Keats was referring to. He wrote about the life cycle of inanimate objects – in particular, the last years of a cargo ship that for twenty years travelled between Australia and Europe before ending her days, displaced by container ships and cheap air travel, in a breakers yard.

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; // And gathering swallows twitter in the skies

From one isolated line of poetry, a wealth of subjects and memories were written about, from the very literal to the more abstract. At My Story, we want to help you as much as possible. That is what sets our extensive topic library apart from standard boilerplate questionnaires you might find elsewhere. That is why we encourage you to create your own topics and your family & friends to suggest new ones. We think a little differently so that you can too.