As an elder member of the society I thought it might be interesting to all “newcomers” if I was to recall some of my experiences of exhibiting and growing dahlias some forty years ago.
I grew about 240 in an open field at the rear of the house. A barbed wire fence being the only protection to keep the fanner’s work horses at bay. It wasn’t uncommon in those days to see a wagon being pulled by two Clydesdale horses. Of course polythene had not been invented and the only way to cover a “prize” bloom was to remove the bottom from a wooden tomato box and replace it with a sheet of glass. The entire arrangement being precariously suspended over the bloom and held in place by canes. Not a very satisfactory method I agree but this was 1950 after all.
I grew ten of each variety. The classification in those days
was large, medium, small with the poms being divided into large
poms and small poms. Some of the varieties I grew were Doctor
John Grainger (large pom), Gerry Hoek (sd), Glorie van Heemstede
(sd in those days), Doris Day (sc) and Willos Violet (sp).
Back then the main suppliers were Dobbie of Edinburgh, Bannatyne
and Jackson of Hamilton, Alex Lister of Rothesay and Patterson
of Auchtermuchty. The price of a rooted cutting ranged from 9
pence to 14 pence but when Alex Lister brought out Doctor Grainger
and Mother Lister the price shot up to 1 pound per plant. Believe
it or not but that equates to £12 ($20) per plant at today’s
prices.
Dobbie of Edinburgh caused quite a sensation at the Chelsea show, they were the first company to exhibit dahlias.
The “national” was held in Glasgow at the Kelvin Hall. On the day prior to the show I selected my blooms and left them overnight in water hoping they would soak up enough for the journey ahead. You see in those days very few people had their own transport, everyone relied on public transport. I took my blooms to the shows in a wooden box which was specially made for me by Bob Arthur a cabinet maker from Lochwinnoch. I took the six o’clock bus from Dalry to Glasgow alighting at Cessnock where I boarded the subway for Partick Cross arriving at the Kelvin Hall around 8.
After staging it was a matter of passing the night away waiting for the subway to open. I whiled away the time watching the trade exhibitors erecting their stands. One of the most interesting aspects of the show as far as I was concerned was that about 10 o’clock a certain gentleman arrived clutching a suitcase. No, the case did not contain his prize blooms but a flask of tea and a few sandwiches wrapped in the “Sunday Post”. In fact he never grew a single plant but spent the whole night searching around the show for spare blooms. As you can imagine with the large number of trade stands that attended there was always a surplus of blooms. As far as I can recall he achieved quite a few “thirds”.
I took the first bus from Dairy to Largs and set up my exhibit in the morning then took the bus to Wemyss Bay where I boarded the boat for Rothesay. In those days the fare was 2/6 in ‘real money’, 12.5 pence in Maastricht money. I spent several hours wandering around and admiring the dahlias at Alex Lister’s nursery in the hopes of seeing something which might just be suitable for showing the following season. A very good medium cactus could make a nice small, that is what I would do as the judges in those days were just the same as today, they had no idea on dahlia classifications .... nothing changes! As I said it is some 40 years since I last exhibited dahlias and last year my long time friend David Ruxton stirred me into growing a few for fun. I managed to get my son interested and who knows the name Allan might yet appear on a ticket after all these years.