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Mrs Carmel Amalfi describes a hailstorm on her father-in-law's Liverpool market garden in March 1947, recorded 1986

Mrs Carmel Amalfi, interviewed in 1986 for the 'Looking Back at Liverpool' oral history project, describes a hailstorm on the family farm in Liverpool in the 1930s.
Transcript

CARMEL: In 1947, it was early March '47, we got a real real bad one. Your father-in-law had, what was it, about 10 acres (approximately 4 hectares) of land that was all under cultivation and we had beans, we had tomatoes, we had lettuce and when the hailstorm came, it looked as if you let a few thousand chickens through it and made a mess of them 'cause on the tomato vines there was only left the stake that was holding them up. The lettuce, they were good for nothing. The beans, there was nothing left but the stalks. So poor Poppy, he went down to have a look to see what happened and the hearts of the lettuce, there was nothing there. Poor Poppy was walking back and forwards saying 'What am I going to do? I've got a big family!'

INTERVIEWER: What did the family do?

CARMEL: Just more or less had to start from scratch again.

Contributed By
Liverpool City Library
[BRN: 56320]
(Detail from interview with Mrs Carmel Amalfi from the 'Looking back at Liverpool : an oral history of the Liverpool region 1900-1960' conducted in 1986 by Liverpool City Council, editor and project co-ordinator Catherine Johnson ; researchers Angela Imbrosciano, Verica Miiosavijevic, Kathleen Smith.)