PINS can be confusing. There’s no full set of rules because, as you know, things need doing and you can’t get five minutes to sit down and have a good think. There’s the breakfasts to do, and that takes up time and is a lot of bother, especially when the lads are home on a visit; none of them get up at the same time and trying to get it all on the plates without it getting burnt or going cold is a real to-do, I could shake all of them sometimes! Toast is always cold! Then there’s the washing up to do, and the bird table to fill up, and you have to put a bit on the ground under the bushes, as the starlings mob that table and the wrens and the blackbirds nesting can pick the crumbs up in peace. But you have to watch out for rats! The fellow at the top of the backs just got some chickens and that is asking for trouble.
After the washing up’s done, you have to put all the degradable stuff on the compost bin in the backs; in the left hand compartment, mind, and see if there's any compost worth moving over to the right bin. See if Tommy is pottering about in his backs, cutting wood - he’s always busy - have a quick natter. See if that daft lump of a cat from next door is up for a tickle. Maybe check on that blackbird’s nest and check on the gooseberry and redcurrant bushes, they’re running wild. But I can’t dig them up - when I dug up the elderberry bush I cut a big toad in half, the upset lived with me for days. Gave up making wine back in the 1980s, that’s why the elderberry bush had to go; the stuff you need took up too much room, too; with all the wine jars and the buckets and bottles in the bottom cupboards, we couldn’t get the twin tub back in properly and I caught it in the neck about that! Here’s the kit you need.
A good, food-grade-quality plastic bucket that can hold four gallons, and a tight lid that serves as the primary fermentation vat.
Three one-gallon glass jugs with finger handles at the top to use as secondary fermentation containers. The lads would always be trying to break into them. We had to put the spuds and onions in the shed, there was no room when I was making wine. Another bone of contention!
A good funnel that fits into the mouth of the glass bottles - get one down at the general stores at the bottom of Warner Street, she runs it really, I bet she can be a bit of a dragon, her husband just stands around, chatting to anyone and doing nothing except being told what to do! Eeh, he’s a dopey Lanky so-and-so, nice enough, mind.
Three airlocks (they act as fermentation traps).
A bung, to fit into the secondary fermentation container. A rubber cork will do. Watch them as they can degrade. You used to be able to get them at the hardware shop at the top of the road. That’s long gone; after the old couple had died, I heard the house was really run down; frayed carpets and curtains. You used to see that a lot, keeping up appearances at the front end, back in the 1960s and 1970s in Lancashire, never letting on. You could look at someone’s shirt cuffs to tell. There was a post office, a delicatessen, a florist, a newsagents, a chemist, a hair salon for the ladies, a butchers and a Working Mens Club up the road, too; as well as the pub. And a little concreted park we’d take the lads to when they were tots. A nice place, really. You didn’t need to go into town, though many did anyway. (Did you know the main way people would get into Accrington up to very recently was to walk?) Now it’s pies, a chippy, and booze and beauty shops up there. Pub’s got a huge cross of St George over the entrance now, caters to the football crowd. Imagine going to the pub and looking at a huge television screen the size of your bath! The back room hasn’t changed since the 1960s. I used to like going up when Peter would play the piano on a Monday night, all the old 1940s numbers I can just about remember.
Large straining bag of nylon mesh - got that at Woolies. Meant going to Woolies, though.
About six feet of clear half-inch plastic tubing, that could also be got at Woolies or at a garden centre if you’re lucky, sometimes they have clear tubing; the one behind Enfield CC had some, once.
About 20 wine bottles (you'll need five bottles for each gallon of wine) and get them from a supplier! Using old wine bottles means a thorough cleaning with Epsom salts and vinegar and leaving them to stand in the sink, and then you’ll get told off for “taking up all the room in the house”. Anyway, getting old wine bottles back in the 1970s wasn’t as easy as you would think! No-one drank wine at home, unless you had airs and graces, like that couple up the road who later got fined for being unhygienic by the council. No, there would be a sherry bottle or two that would have to last, and a bottle of scotch for Christmas. We’d have a cigarette at Christmas, too. Glad we stopped. For drinks at home, I’d sometimes take that big old vase we got from Marion, with the cavalier on the front, and get the landlord over the road to fill it with beer and then it would stand on the table, the lads could have it with lemonade. The lads broke it, I glued it up again.
Number 9-size, pre-sanitized corks. You can get those at the hardware store, make sure she’s serving as he’ll get the wrong ones.
Hand corker - best to send off for a couple, mail order.
A hydrometer to measure sugar levels. Likewise.
Too much to do. So I go and sit in the car and read the paper. That’s the one place I can get some quiet. Sometimes I put the paper down and think back to some of the times when I’d go to Greasbrough Working Mens Club, in the early sixties - you’d get thousands in!
An accompanying post to this Rule, with relevant illustrations, can be found in the Museum of Photocopies.