You pick them, put them in a bottle with sugar and water and Bury them to make sloe wine. This is what we did as kids. Bury them for the summer. Theoretically you dig them up after a year and you’re ready to go but I truthfully never found a fucking bottle again upon digging, so I wouldn’t know.
They are the fruit of the blackthorn bush. A variety of wild plum that is incredibly sour and dry. The fruit is a blue black colour. You mix them with gin to make sloe gin, which is a very nice drink.
A pal of mine makes blackberry whiskey. He aims for 6 months of infusion, then pours the whiskey off into a clean bottle to age for another 6 months to a year. It’s savage. And the leftover blackberries are lovely in chocolate puddings, etc.
That story is funnier than anything Bishop has used in his shows. The mental image of his floppy head and big teeth looking at you over the garden wall as you tried to chase burglars in your pyjamas and flip flops is unfortunately stuck in my mind now for the day. (I am thinking nice red brick walls and a manicured garden)