Welcome to Our World

My first garden was a tiny plot at the top of my childhood garden in Brancaster Lane, Purley, Surrey where I began my life in 1935.  It really was a rather rotten bit of land under trees, me to one side of the path and my brother to the other.  Nothing seemed to want to grown and eventually my brother, Keith turned it into a play area and created a seesaw out of a plank and an old oil can - far more fun than gardening at the age of six.

The next attempt at gardening came when Harley and I got married in 1956 and moved into our newly built estate house - 1 Donne Close, Three Bridges in Sussex. We began by building a wall of broken bricks which we 'acquired' and Harley built a trellis to divide the lawn and flower area from the vegetable garden.  We bought turf for the garden and the parents gave us an apple tree and we were off!  This top area quickly looked attractive with plants from various relative's gardens.  Previously, when the housing estate was cleared the contractors, they unfortunately cleared the top soil away and left us with a clay sub-soil which baked hard as concrete in the sun. 

I was glad the flowers seemed to survive because most of the vegetables were a dismal failure except from my first and only peapod which was two inches off the ground and contained exactly one pea.  The saving grace was a row of six silver birch trees planted to provide a little privacy from the row of houses backing on to us.  These trees were also 'acquired' in a rather dubious manner.  When we visited the house some forty years later we saw that the birches, wall, trellis and apple tree had survived - we were amazed! 

In 1957 our first daughter, Rosalind, was born and saved me making any further attempts at vegetables as we had decided to move to Rotherfield in Sussex and grow mushrooms.