FORMER market gardener John Friendship of St Dominic celebrates his 90th birthday tomorrow (Friday).

Described in the Times at his retirement in 1975 as 'one of the best known and oldest established market gardeners on the Cornish side of the Tamar', Mr Friendship is a proud Cornishman who still lives in the cottage in which he was born.

Inside the cottage hangs a poignant memory of his childhood — a masterful clock which once hung in the Cornish Arms where his great-grandfather was the landlord.

Mr Friendship has dedicated his life to the land. In the early years he, his brother and father went threshing, which supplemented the fruit-picking income, but which was halted by the arrival of the combine harvester.

Then market gardening occupied the rest of his working life, growing mainly strawberries, anemones and eucalyptus.

The industry peaked in the 1950s. At that time St Dominic was renowned for majestic cherry orchards, productive fields of many varieties of daffodils and abundant harvests of strawberries.

With costs of labour rising uneconomically, causing his competitors to go out of business, it was Mr Friendship who hosted the first pick-your-own system — placing an advert in the Times inviting people to come along and pick their own fruit — which was a staggering success.

Mr Friendship is currently contributing his knowledge, skills and memories to the Calstock Development Trust's 'History of Market Gardening in the Tamar Valley' project, which aims to provide an archive of the industry which once provided a living to so many in the area.