< Back to Blog

Creative writing in the Senior School

DaisyChain is Redmaids' High School's termly magazine, edited by Mrs Rodliffe, Head of English, with content submissions from across the Senior School and Sixth Form.  There's a variety of fiction and non-fiction, poems and prose, covering topics that excite, interest and inspire our students. 

We're always proud of the work that our students create, and so thought we'd share one of last term's highlights. We hope you enjoy 'Potatoes' by Eloise in Year 11. 

Potatoes

For as long as I can remember, Dad’s been in the garden, kitted out in his camouflage jacket, army-style boots and covered in streaks of mud. He wells holes 6.2cm apart so that each bean plant grows just right with maximum crop yield. I’ve never really understood why he bothers. Why spend all his spare time turning the soil and asking for free manure from the farm down the road? Why keep last year’s potato skins to grow this year’s crop, when larger, cleaner products could easily be bought from the supermarket? And most importantly, for me, anyway, why force me to drudge my way outside and sag from lectures about tubers and compost?

I suppose it’s a generational thing. He grew up on a farm, climbing trees, chasing sheep and watching the natural cycle unfold every year, the income resting on yield and how many poults (baby turkeys) would be ready in time for Christmas. Me? I grew up rooted firmly in the first world, with half a dozen devices at my fingertips. When he moved to the city, he had to sacrifice being on his farm, with his parents, with nature, all for quick commute and an easy lifestyle. And the unintended consequence — something incomprehensible to him — was that I would much rather have been huddled on the sofa swiping rows of colourful candies on my iPod than shivering in wellies that went up to my thighs.

He used to get me to help plant the potatoes, to measure the spacings with a focus and precision no eight-year-old could ever hope to achieve of their own volition. But he’d cup my hands in his as we took scoopfuls of soil that looked like chocolate cake, and showed me how to gently wrap the potato, shrivelled and pocked with white shoots, back into its bed.

All through the year after planting, he’d spend his time watering the plants, checking for shoots across the garden, or sitting in a chair outside. Just him, the steady trickle of our broken hose, and his mind, cast back to how the taste of the countryside used to roll round, rich and gritty, on his tongue. Then, in the summer, he’d take the weight of the fork and sink its prongs into the ground, getting me to push down so that the end levered up. Potatoes, round jewels, would tumble through the warm brown earth. I’d run off as soon as we’d finished, and scrub my hands until they were red and the sink was grey; at least I was there.

Over time, my Dad and I have come to the mutual realisation that he can’t force me to help him out in the garden anymore.

So I don’t.

But I remember the evenings when we’d boil our potatoes and eat them in salad with pounds of mayonnaise or mash with his chives: fork to mouth, and grin to the eyes as we relished in our success. Times change, I guess.

My brother leaves for university next year, the first of us, right up the other end of the country. Dad will grow the same number of potatoes as usual, and dig up a bucket load for a Sunday roast. Our grandparents might not be able to come, stranded by the pandemic, or their own fragilities. Without the extra mouths and without my brother to guzzle down a few platefuls, there will be far too much food, so we’ll be having leftovers for the next week. Still, I’ll clutch onto the smell of roasting potatoes for days, infused with garlic in full cloves and handfuls of rosemary. I’ll taste the spiced earth they sprung from, and I’ll look out the window at clouds that chase each other like the sheep through Grandad’s farm.

I’m still figuring out why Dad puts in all the effort through the frost and the rain for our yearly potatoes. I’m coming to think it’s because he wants to make a connection, and it’s the only way he knows how. His Dad taught him how to shear sheep and how to ride a bicycle down the wobbly lanes yet to be flattened by the hunger for towns and motorways. And so, in our little garden, where if you look one way there is nothing but cow fields, and the other pylons and an Amazon warehouse, he taught me how to grow. He taught me how impossible it is to put a value on the soil that hums with potential; on our potatoes that poke their golden heads out to see everything under the steady summer sky. He taught me that sometimes, it takes the rain and the cold and the racking wind to reach the end goal. And, sometimes, it’s just worth it.

So this year I’m helping him dig his his trenches — I’m old enough now to be able to wield his fork on my own and to measure out exactly 6.2 centimetres between each bean plant. I’m old enough to place the old potato skins, shards of last year’s care, back into their plush brown beds. I’m old enough to realise that his potatoes, replanted to sprout food for us each year, are worth more than any hug or ice cream or lesson he could ever give me. It’s what I one day hope to give to my children: pure love, homegrown in our back garden. Even though when we have that roast, we’ll be stuck with a chicken that will never be eaten — because my sister is a vegetarian, I’m really fussy, and my brother will be struggling over a can of soup in some tiny apartment kitchen — we’ll all dig into those potatoes, and grin to our eyes in our shared moment of bliss.

 

You can read our latest DaisyChain in full here. 

Date Posted: 19 August, 2021

Articles for: Senior, Arts

The launch of our new Sixth Form offering

The launch of our new Sixth Form offering

Date Posted: 8 November, 2023
We are thrilled to announce the launch of our pioneering new Sixth Form offering.
READ MORE
Highlights of our Junior Ski Trip!

Highlights of our Junior Ski Trip!

Date Posted: 25 April, 2024
READ MORE
Celebrating another year of outstanding A Level results

Celebrating another year of outstanding A Level results

Date Posted: 17 August, 2023
We are thrilled to announce the outstanding A Level results received today by our students.
READ MORE
A Round-Up of our Lighthouse Programme this Autumn Term

A Round-Up of our Lighthouse Programme this Autumn Term

Date Posted: 13 December, 2022
Our Lighthouse Programme aims to enhance the learning experience for our students enjoying Sixth Form, further...
READ MORE
Meet our new Head Girls

Meet our new Head Girls

Date Posted: 12 April, 2024
Today we are delighted to introduce our newly appointed Head Girls Mia and Ammaarah.
READ MORE
A fun-filled day out on our Big Girl, Little Girl trip

A fun-filled day out on our Big Girl, Little Girl trip

Date Posted: 25 September, 2023
READ MORE
Excellent results for our IB Diploma students

Excellent results for our IB Diploma students

Date Posted: 6 July, 2023
Yesterday, our Year 13 students gained their highly anticipated International Baccalaureate Diplomas and we are...
READ MORE
Celebrating our fantastic Year 13 Class of 2024

Celebrating our fantastic Year 13 Class of 2024

Date Posted: 15 August, 2024
READ MORE
Bringing history to life in the Junior School

Bringing history to life in the Junior School

Date Posted: 25 February, 2022
As part of their history topic on The Tudors, the whole of Year 5 enjoyed a visit to Gloucester Cathedral.
READ MORE
Top marks from the Good Schools Guide

Top marks from the Good Schools Guide

Date Posted: 8 February, 2022
We were delighted to receive the reports written by the Good Schools Guide following their visit in November. They...
READ MORE
IB Diploma students head off to shape the world | Redmaids' High School

IB Diploma students head off to shape the world | Redmaids' High School

Date Posted: 11 July, 2019
READ MORE
35 years of outstanding service

35 years of outstanding service

Date Posted: 2 June, 2021
Maggie Edbrooke, Deputy Headteacher at Redmaids’ High Junior School will retire this summer after 35 years. Mrs...
READ MORE
Adventures in the Mendips

Adventures in the Mendips

Date Posted: 14 March, 2022
Our girls (just like our staff!) love an adventure so we provide as much opportunity as we can to get them out and...
READ MORE
Our talented Year 10's take their original play out on the road

Our talented Year 10's take their original play out on the road

Date Posted: 22 July, 2022
A cast of wonderfully talented Year 10s took their original play, Shakespeare's Super Seven, out on the road at the end...
READ MORE
Hands-on-Science - Dissecting a heart

Hands-on-Science - Dissecting a heart

Date Posted: 3 October, 2022
The story was out in the dining hall at lunchtime - even girls in Year 10 were excited, remembering times past, when it...
READ MORE
Philosothon Competition | Redmaids' High School

Philosothon Competition | Redmaids' High School

Date Posted: 20 March, 2018
READ MORE
History of activism in Bristol

History of activism in Bristol

Date Posted: 30 January, 2022
In assembly, our Junior School pupils had a robust discussion about equality, discrimination, prejudice and activism,...
READ MORE
A Level joy for Redmaids' High Class of 2021

A Level joy for Redmaids' High Class of 2021

Date Posted: 10 August, 2021
Our A Level students were delighted today to receive an outstanding set of results, marking an important milestone in...
READ MORE

Our Year 3 and Year 5 pupils meet author Anthony Burt

Date Posted: 6 June, 2022
Earlier this month, we had the pleasure of welcoming the author, Anthony Burt to our Junior School. Mr Burt met with...
READ MORE
Orienteering Championships  

Orienteering Championships  

Date Posted: 28 September, 2021
Three Senior School students have helped to raise our national profile when it comes to orienteering.
READ MORE
Click here to view all news articles