February 8,1996. Copyright, 1996, Graphic News. All rights reserved

A FRUITY FAMILY
By Nicholas Booth

LONDON, February 8, Graphic News- Terri-Louise Jennings is a very lucky little girl. The four-year-old from Perthshire has lent her name to the Ôthe raspberry of the futureÕ created by her grandfather, Dr Derek Jennings, who was head of research at the Scottish Crop Research Institute, near Dundee, for three decades. He remains a prolific fruit breeder and, most famously, in 1968, created the tayberry Ñ a hybrid of a blackberry, raspberry and loganberry. 

Originally, Dr Jennings named his new breeds of fruit after Scottish glens but later decided to immortalise his family instead. So one raspberry has been named after his wife, Joan Squire, and a new variety of blackberry honours his youngest granddaughter Adrienne. She, like TerriÐLouise, was delighted, unlike Dr. JenningsÕ eldest granddaughter, Claire, who has stipulated she will only lend her name to a new breed of strawberry, her favourite fruit.

After retiring in 1989, Dr Jennings joined Simon Brice, a Kent fruit farmer. The Terri-Louise is the first fruit of their labours, and Brice now has 25,000 of the plants, covering eight acres, which may produce anything from 24 to 32 tonnes of fruit this year. Marks & Spencer have taken an exclusive contract to sell the Terri-Louise as an Ôown brandÕ, confident that the buying public will not be put off by the cost Ñ up to 20 pence per berry during the winter.

Sources: The Daily Telegraph, Fresh Fruit Information Bureau