When I was young I hated rhubarb. That didn’t stop the good people of my home town of Wakefield having a rhubarb festival every year. To make matters worse my grandad is  a rhubarb farmer.  The location of his  farm is within the three hallowed vertices of the Rhubarb Triangle which covers the area in between Wakefield, Leeds and Bradford (some suggest it also stretches to Rothwell but i’m a purist when it comes to the sacred Triangle).

Over the years I warmed to the taste of this non native (it was brought back to the uk by soldiers who faught in the Crimean war),  sour,  herbaceous perennial to the point that I now relish a good crumble after my sunday lunch.  I also enjoy my Grandads frequent regailing of rhubarb based memories. One of my favorites is about 1953. That year the harvest was partuicularly good and my grandad and my uncle Norman went out and bought deluxe fur coats for their wives. I love this mainly because my grandad always maintains a desheveled, farmer look with tatty wooly jumpers and dungerees.  The thought of him ambling down the lane with my gran glammed up to the nines makes me smile.

My uncle passed away a couple of years ago and as I have an interest in photography my grandad gave me some boxes of his old slides. I was going through them a while ago when I  found this gem. Behold the bumper crop and the two rhubarb beauties.