The St Andrews Seed Sessions – Extract from 40 Humourous British Traditions

Most people think nothing of mundane activities such as spitting out a seed, flicking a discarded pip from a trouser leg, or squeezing a cherry stone between your fingers until it scoots into the distance. However in St Andrews in Fife these activities are celebrated in style at the annual Seed Sessions in the third week of August.

The term ‘seed’ is a generic term that covers pips, stones and hulls from various fruits. Because of the different sizes of the seeds, each of the contests is split into many categories. These categories are for apple seeds, orange pips, cherry stones, olive pitts and watermelon seeds.

The methods used to propel the various seeds are spitting, squeezing between two fingers and flicking from a flat surface with a finger. There are accuracy tests as well as distance contests.

The festival started during the annual apple picking in 1847 when young men in the orchard were spitting out the pips from their Red Victoria, Cambusnethan Pippin and Lord Grosvener apples. One youth, Iain Logie, maintained he could spit a pip further than anyone else, although this was difficult to prove as all the pips looked the same. Jamie Nesbit said he could decapitate a wasp at 10 paces using a pip that he spat from his mouth.

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