‘Lucky Luke’ is the first story in the ‘Orchard to Orchard’ series I created in collaboration in 2024, with photographer James Sebright. The series imagines lives interacting with one site in urban Sheffield over a 300-year period, combining creative writing, photography, photomontage and archival research.

My two best choices in all my twenty years, were to knock at doors. I knocked at the Doncasters’ door for work just as the apple harvest was beginning. And when I knocked at the Jessops’ with a case of sweet cherries, that is when I met Minnie.

I think May is my favourite month for working in the orchards. I scythe the long grasses and the nettles, bundle the nettles for Merle to make her tinctures and remedies, and stack the grass for the horses. I love to feel the strength coursing in my body and hear the thwick of the scythe blade – it is like a song. When I have cleared an area and the grass around is still tall, I sit down, have a long drink from my cider flask, and watch the finches and sparrows begin to investigate the edges of the clearing where my work has disturbed the ants and beetles.

It is also the time of year when the cherry trees are still in blossom and the apple trees are coming into flower too. The combination of whites and creams and pinks on a sunny morning lifts my heart to the heavens, and the bees come buzzing so persistently, as if they are taunting the flowers to release their pollen. As if asking politely were not enough. And the hard, green pellets that will grow into this season’s apples give me a glimpse of the future, of the harvest to come.

Since old Robert died, this is time that I spend mostly alone, but because Robert taught me so much about these trees, as well as the flowers and birds, it is still time I get to spend with him, remembering his advice and gossip and predictions. Robert said he thought the family wanted to build a works on the eastern orchard, where the soil is poorer. And some houses too. I know this must be in the master’s mind, because other families around have done likewise. It is progress, it has to happen. Robert would have been glad not to see it though, he could not have stood to see the fruit trees being chopped down and dug out. Yet it is a large orchard for me to tend alone, and if the master keeps the western fields then these will be enough for me to manage, and to make extra money selling fruit from my handcart.

I am happy outside with my trees, and with the earth and sky. I am also lucky that I can read and write, went to the church school. When young Felix comes to the orchard I can show him and read to him about insects and birds and flowers, from the book by Gilbert White that the mistress gave to me.

If I were inside, I could not be happy. I worry that one day I may have to look for work sharpening knives. From honing my scythes and pruning knives I know how it is done, and I would be fast and I could earn well. But knife grinding can be dangerous sometimes, if a wheel splinters or you catch your finger in the axle like Frank did a few weeks ago. That and the grinding dust which gives a terrible cough that breaks strong men. I am glad not to be a soldier too – I cannot imagine having to face a man and kill him or be killed.

I am saving some money because I want to marry Minnie. She is a parlour maid though she also tends to the goats, and sometimes she will bring milk or cheese for us to share. On a summer evening when the work is done, we can sit in the orchard with cider and cheese and pretend that we are royalty, surveying our realm. How lucky we are, Minnie and I, to have honourable masters and work that we can do outside, amongst my trees and her goats.  If there is a better life than this I should be surprised.