Summer picnics and the lost art of cooking

AT The Camellias, apartments for the independent over-60s, we have mixed feelings about the coming of autumn.

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It's time to think about switching the heating on which is not welcome but the summer this year was very hot and sadly this doesn’t agree with most of us anymore.

Gone are our days of sunbathing with our backs sprayed with cooking oil. This year I even had to miss out on some extra sunny picnics.

Most family picnics in the 1950s when I was young were sandwiches and hard boiled eggs and tea in a thermos but nowadays it’s barbecues with beefburgers and hot dogs and gallons of tomato sauce, followed by choc ices on sticks and fizzy drinks which make the children over lively.

My own family’s picnics were not like other people's picnics for we were poor. I remember cold boiled potatoes and soggy jam sandwiches, we carried them in an aluminium tiffin box which must have come back with my father from India.