Cornish Food Market

The Isle of White Garlic Story

June 27, 2012 in | 0 comments

Where did the original Solent Wight garlic come from? Its origins were at Cowes on the Isle of Wight. A squadron of Free French Torpedo boats was stationed in Cowes during the Second World War. The Gallic crew drank at the Painters Pub and regularly complained to the landlord, Bill Spidy, about the abomination that was the British 'wartime diet'. By 1942 they yearned for French cooking and the whiff of garlic and complained so vehemently that Bill Spidy searched the Island for garlic, alas with no success. What he did know, however, was that some of his RAF pilot friends were flying Lysanders at night, landing in central France to deposit SOE agents and munitions and returning home.

On one of these flights deep into occupied France, a sack of Auvergne garlic came back to England and into Bill’s hands on the Island. He lived with his family on a small farm in the centre of the Island, planted the garlic which then grew successfully for the Free French who then felt and smelt like self respecting Frenchmen for the rest of the war.

Colin's parents came to live at Mersley Farm, now The Garlic Farm, in the mid 50s, next door to Bill Spidy’s farm at Little Duxmore. HIs mother Norah began growing some of her neighbour’s garlic in the kitchen garden, Colin came home to farm in the mid 70s and, as they say, the rest is history.