Page 20 Daily Mail, Wednesday, August 7, 2019
Daily Mail Reporter
WITH concentration etched on
their faces, experts gingerly
weigh the formidable fruit of
Graeme Watson’s labours.
And after it was confirmed he had
broken the world record for heaviest
gooseberry, he called the accolade ‘the
Holy Grail of gooseberry growing’.
Mr Watson, 59, of Ainthorpe, North
Yorkshire, said it was a ‘good feeling’ to
win with his 2.27oz ‘little beauty’.
But he explained yesterday it was a
race to submit the champion fruit to
Egton Bridge Gooseberry Show because
they begin to lose weight from the
moment they are picked.
Mr Watson said: ‘It was picked last Remedy for
the plague?
THE GOLDEN GOOSEBERRY
Record fruit tips
scales at 2.27oz
Gooseberries were first
cultivated in Britain in the
16th century and were
recommended as medicine
for plague victims.
Gooseberry sauce was
paired with mackerel in
Victorian times. Gordon
Ramsay now recommends
serving it with duck.
‘Playing gooseberry’
derives from the 19th
century, when chaperones
pretended to pick the fruit
while accompanying
unmarried couples.÷
÷
÷
‘The Holy Grail of
growing the fruit’mini suitcase – a mini carrying
box padded out inside and lined
in egg trays.’ Mr Watson’s goose-
berry, a yellow variety called Mil-
lennium, weighed in at 64.56g at
9am –beating 30 other competi-
tors and the current world record
of 64.49g, which has been held by
Kelvin Archer since 2013.
Mr Watson, a member of Egton
Bridge Old Gooseberry Societyestablished in 1800, said the key
was ‘attention to detail’.
‘We have to keep the bushes
healthy, keep pests off them, get
the fertiliser right,’ he added.‘You have to protect them later
in the year when they’re getting
ripe. I use umbrellas over them to
stop them getting wet and they
don’t particularly like hot sun.’Agog: Judges at Egton
Bridge Gooseberry
Show using traditional
scales yesterdaynight. I got my hands on it and thought,
“this is a good one”. It was nice and ripe,
which means they weigh a little bit more.
When I got it on the scales I couldn’t
believe how much it weighed.
‘I didn’t get much sleep last night when
I realised this might just happen. I have
been trying a long, long time. It’s proba-
bly a once-in-a-lifetime gooseberry for
most growers. It’s the Holy Grail.’
Mr Watson said: ‘It was a race against
time to get it officially weighed. I had to
sweat it out to make sure it hadn’t burst
on the way. I had it in a box like a little
Show-stealer: The winning fruitРЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS