Buy My Lily Of The Valley.

A Memory of Farnham.

On one day of the year, through the forties and probably the fifties, my grandmother Ethel Glazier, would pick all the lily of the valley she had, in a square bed about three foot square, in her back garden in Rowledge. She would bind them into small bunches, with leaves around, and tie them carefully with thread.
They would sit in a bowl of water on the flagged floor of her larder overnight. She would be on the first bus from the village in the morning, and sit in the Castle Street end of this Colonade, selling the bunches from a basket. She would be home in time for the midday meal, with a pocket ful of cash, and a treat of fish heads for the cat (patriotically called Monty).
My grandmother was a most respectable woman, and this was totally out of character, but I think she just liked to disprove my grandfather's maxim "you can't eat flowers!"