Chrysanthemum on the outer thigh

It was the autumn of 1952 and Walter Ashby was twenty, sent up to the Hall at Thornley to grow cabbages and leeks, which was a sorry business for a lad who wanted only to grow one thing. So he grew chrysanthemums instead, in a cold frame behind the potting shed. He fed them soot water and cow muck and talked to them when he thought nobody was listening. The white blooms came up grey at the edges in the frost, and the reds went the colour of a bruised plum. Mrs Hollis from the Hall said they were the ugliest flowers she had ever seen, then bought a dozen for her own daughter's wedding.

Elsie Crane was the daughter who worked the dairy, and she said the same as Mrs Hollis, only louder. Walter asked her to marry him all the same, and on the eve of the wedding the first real frost came down the valley like a white sheet. He ran out in his nightshirt and found the frame silvered over, every bloom bowed to the glass except one. It stood up straight in the middle, its petals curled like the edges of a letter that had been read too often.

He cut that one and carried it to the church in a jam jar. Elsie wore it pinned at her collar, and when the vicar asked if anyone knew a reason they should not wed, the flower gave a little shiver in the draught and nobody said a word. So now you know why there is a chrysanthemum on the bride's cake, and why Walter Ashby never once bought a rose.