Periscope: We should revive the lost pastime of fruit picking to reduce our food waste

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO, ‘THE CORK EXAMINER’ PUBLISHED A SERIES OF OPINION PIECES BY A CONTRIBUTOR KNOWN AS ‘PERISCOPE’ ON SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ISSUES THAT ARE STILL RELEVANT TODAY

Fruit pickers at Rathcooney fruit farm in Co Cork in 1956.

The grey days are coming; the light falls with the earlier hours; the red sunsets are few and far between.

“New Autumn’s fire burns slowly along the woods.” The sere, the yellow leaf loosened by the breezy breath of chilly October, wafts down to the sad sodden earth where late was lifted the store of golden grain that is often so much less than its promise, so much less than our hope.