Fig. 1

Although I suppose it should be Fig. 3.

This large Fig tree grows against a south facing wall in the walled garden in our village woodlands. It does quite well for a northern location.

Seeing it reminded me of my dear old Yorkshire mother born 124 years ago.

She had a great many “sayings” which were frequently used. If she was shown something which she considered of poor quality she would always say “I wouldn’t give you a fig for a barrowful”.

This led me to wonder why a fig was so often equated with something of little value. Of course I consulted Professor Google and found that its use in this way in English goes back some hundreds of years.
This led me to an interesting site called The Phrase Finder which informed me that the idea goes back even further to Spain and Italy. It seems the notion also had some sexual connotations, but this is a family site so I won’t go into that.

I suppose in those sunny countries figs were very common and as they are perhaps not the most delicious of fruit it is easy to see why they were regarded as almost worthless.