AH: Is this an area which is good for growing cider apples?
RS: Yes, but there’s not many growing them these days.
AH: No, I know, but I’m talking about, you know, when your father died. They were still being grown in the 1950s, weren’t they, the orchards?
RS: Oh yes, oh yes, they were back in '48. They were. South Petherton was a strong area, around Glastonbury, Shepton Mallet there was a very strong area. This was a not such a strong area, but there were some good orchards around here. Trull, for instance, was wonderful land for producing apples, and this area on the south side of the A38 was a very strong, or should we say did produce high quality fruit.
It’s, most of the cider these days is produced and bottled, and obviously sold in half-litre upwards, whereas in the olden days most of the cider was produced and put in wooden casks and sold as a draught type cider. But that is tending to die out. In, infact it started dying out in the what, middle, late '50s. And I suppose one would say these days, the cider industry as a whole tends to bottle their cider and sell it in that form, whereas I suppose you could say Thatcher’s would sell possibly quite a lot of cider draught-wise through outlets associated with Bristol and Bath or in that area.