My father mowed the lawn with a petrol mower. Dead straight lines, dark green, light green. It could have been Wimbledon.
As it was it was a newly built council house with a patch of green big enough for a tennis net. We never played tennis.
My father laid a concrete path around the lawn. He had no interest in gardening or husbandry so when he mowed he took the bottom off trees, shrubs and whatever else was in the way. He wore old trousers, a brown polkadot scarf and a white vest. That lawn was cut with military precision. No soft curves, no weeds just a perfect rectangle.
The new build was constructed on clay. Thick yellow Hertfordshire clay.
My mother grafted.
‘I feel like an Egyptian slave.’ she would say as she wheeled a barrow full of earth from point to point.
Bits of broken crockery, and crouch grass from the farm land soon gave way to my mothers horticultural heaven.. .
She loved gardening. Researching shrubs and flowers and taking cuttings from the wherever.
My mother had green fingers. Whatever she planted grew, Tomato plants, avocado plants, lemons, oranges, if it had a pip she popped it in something.
A loveless marriage finds comfort in terracotta pots and gooseberries. We had loads of them,
We also had red currents blackcurrants, quinces, thirty thousand lettuces and luscious peas. Sitting on little chairs, next to my mother, in what I remember as long, hot summers, we would pod the peas. Three in the colander one in the mouth.
When my father rehoused them into a beige bungalow in Bedfordshire, he took away her garden which nearly killed her. It was the perfect punishment for a defeated woman.
She was relocated to a lovely little flat, next to Elstree Studios.
Tubs, baskets and endless containers were in every corner. She even propagated pineapples.
I had no interest in gardens, gardening or anything to do with green fingers. I accidentally pulled out 42 lettuces my mother had patiently planted. When I put a garden fork through my toe, hopping round the kitchen bleeding all over the floor, I waved to my mother in the front garden. She waved back unaware that I was hemorrhaging.
I had a month off school and still have the scar on my right hand Middle toe.
Gardening was not for me.
In June 1984 we moved to the cottage.
I came down on the train. The roads leading to the cottage were lined with Rhododendrons. The wealthy Victorians brought back cuttings from their tea plantations in the Himalayas.
Those handsome purple flowers lined the route.
When I arrived at the cottage, twas the garden that peaked my attention. I didn’t really look at the cottage. The buildings had been designed for the blacksmith. Dark and cool in the summer, warm and cosy in the winter,
The garden, however, was a completely different story. The owner was on her hands and needs forking out weeds. Her big round bum eclipsed the brilliant blue Agapanthus. Two small children were running around and blue butterflies filled the air. I was hooked. Shook hands with the husband and the cottage was ours.
It was that simple.
The first three plants I bought stand proudly. A eucalyptus tree, a Magnolia tree and a Magnolia Stellata.
May is the best time for the tulip tree flowers, although climate change means it blossoms earlier.
We have Euonymous and Spirea, gifts from Mary 40 years ago. Laurel and hydrangeas, monbretia. and Cotoneaster with its brilliant orange berries. We have Rosemary, Sage and Thyme and luscious ferns. We also hve a bathtub, a cast-off from a film, filled with dahlias.
We have a magnificent red acer that the old git bought me for a wedding anniversary, a hedge of red, red roses, lavender to line the path and lots of heavy peonies.
We built the studio, when we had unlimited funds, we also had gardeners.
A female couple who created a wishing well and divided the garden into four quadrants.
They left to set up a cattery in the North East. Wally, an ex milkman, took over from them. He grew bumper crops of vegetables, some of which he took home. He mowed and pruned. And kept the garden beautifully. But when we got Jackson the dog Wally left a note.
‘I’m not coming any more that dog will piss all over me produce.’
Wally left and subsequently died.
An assortment of gardeners came and went. I now have a geezer who comes every fortnight and unlike my mother, does not have green fingers.
We face south, but the sun stops late afternoon and goes to the front garden. Sunny times were better years ago before the trees matured. .
Our young neighbours have the best of views. We have a marvellous view when he hedge is cut down. You can see the oasthouses.
Our first neighbours, a pair of hoity toity television personalties, took umbrage at the old git pruning the roses.
‘You’re fucking up our garden.’ said the bloke
He lost his temperthe ‘oosbind told him the bushes would grow back but if he didn’t like it he could put up a fence. The bastard did. 5ft 6inches, well within legal limits. The garden felt small and claustrophobic. I escorted his wife into the garden to take a look at the damage.
‘I’ll have you for assault.’ she hissed. ‘Anyway the view belongs to our cottage.
We’d been here three years and were embroiled in a proper neighbourly dispute.
Rather than take the fence down they moved. The new family that came in listened to our plight and within two days the fence was taken down.
We had three apple trees. Now we have two. They were pruned last year so the crop this autumn has been blissful.
Next doors oak tree and laurel have taken away a lot of sun, dodging the shade, moving the garden furniture around to catch the rays, is now part of the summer routine.
But we live in the middle of green. I’m too lazy, at the moment, to repot ancient tubs, but I fully expect my energy to return and then it’ll be trips to the garden centre.
I’ve just put in Elephant Ears ready for next year.
The garden is covered in sodden golden leaves and bits of Eucalyptus bark.
My mother used to sit on the swing set declaring the garden to be a place of health, when I mowed the lawn she cried at the death of the daisies.
‘They’ll be back’ I shouted.
The garden is a hideaway. Sunny when it needs to be, it’s also a pain up the arse to keep tidy.
Its housed hundreds of parties, and will continue to do so, despite what the flaming doctors have to say.
Christmas is coming and the hellebores are thickly leaved. The cat sits among the jasmine and honeysuckle and completes the picture.
Two old working class actors living like pigs in shit.
You can take the girl out of the East End but you can’t take the East End out of the girl.