End of an era

After 86 years Wimbledon has ended its partnership with Robinsons, the soft drinks brand now owned by Britvic.

According to the Daily Mail:

The squash maker’s lemon barley water was concocted at the All England Lawn Tennis Club in 1935 to hydrate players.

It might not mean much to you but as a child Robinsons lemon barley water - or barley water, as we called it - was a big deal to me and the memories it conjures up go way beyond a simple thirst-quenching drink.

But first, some context. When I was a child (pre-teen especially) I rarely drank fizzy ‘pop’ as it was called.

My mother would sometimes buy a bottle of fizzy lemonade from the Corona delivery man whose van would visit our road every fortnight or so, and I may have been allowed the occasional glass of Coca-Cola, but carbonated drinks were not the norm in our house.

I’m not sure why. Perhaps it was the extra expense or perhaps my parents were concerned about the sugar content.

Sugar free 'pop' was unheard of, as far as I know, but I do remember, when I was a teenager, my mother weaning me off having sugar in my tea so perhaps that was a factor. (I did have a lot of fillings as a child but so did everyone else in the Sixties and Seventies.)

So instead of fizzy lemonade, which was considered a treat in our house, I drank tea, orange squash and Robinson’s lemon barley water.

I associate the latter primarily with my grandmother though because whenever we visited my grandparents in Dorset one of the first things she would ask was, ‘Would you like a drink?’, and moments later a glass of barley water would appear.

This was in the Sixties before we moved to Scotland and visits to my grandparents in Fifehead Neville, a tiny hamlet near Sturminster Newton, were always something to look forward to because it was so different to our own home on a large modern estate in Maidenhead.

My grandparents’ house dated from the 16th or 17th century and was actually three thatched cottages - for farmworkers, I imagine - that had been knocked into one larger house.

The one-acre garden had apple trees, flower beds, a vegetable plot, a strawberry patch and a lawn on which we played ‘strawberry’ croquet, so named because the winner was allowed to pick strawberries from the strawberry patch.

In the summer my grandfather would spend a large part of the day in the garden, coming in only for meals, and when we visited we would do the same because it was always warm and sunny in Dorset in the Sixties. Obviously.

My grandfather died of a heart attack, aged 72, in 1972. Unknown to me he had angina but in those days treatment was in its infancy. Today he would have had stents or a heart by-pass operation and lived another ten years or more.

(My father, who also had angina, had two heart by-pass operations - the first in his fifties - followed by a heart transplant at the age of 67 and lived until he was 84.)

As it happens my grandfather died in the garden. After he failed to come in for dinner my grandmother went looking for him and found him dead with a trowel in his hand, which isn’t a bad way to go, doing something that he loved.

I mention all this because these are just some of the memories inspired by the reports about Wimbledon and Robinsons lemon barley water which I haven’t drunk for over 40 years which is bizarre because I really liked it!

The problem, I think, is that after I left home I was seduced by beer, ice cold fizzy drinks and ‘freshly squeezed’ fruit juice (an expensive but genuine luxury in 1980!) and never looked back.

Nevertheless barley water will always be a reminder of childhood visits to Dorset, croquet on the lawn and home grown strawberries.

And my grandparents, of course.

See also: Robinsons ends Wimbledon sponsorship after 86 years (BBC News).