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My Mother has often said to me You don’t
appreciate what you’ve got until you lose it”. She is wrong, for I will never forget the wonderful garden
of my childhood and write below the memories that I will hold for all time.
It all began in 1953 when I was five years old and my parents first drove from where we lived in
London southwards to a small village called Shamley Green which is 5 miles outside of the town Guildford, Surrey. The
day was overcast and chilly and it had been raining. Everything was wet and shiny. Jewel-like droplets of rain
still hung from leaves and nestled within clumps of grass along the roadside. Occasionally I saw rainbow coloured slicks
of oil glistening on the surface of some of the many puddles that had collected in small pools along the edges of the roads
and lanes as we drove by. As I sat in the back of the specially rented car for that journey, hearing the sound of the
car’s engine droning on, as we continued mile after mile, I gazed out of the windows in wonder, as we passed the many
houses and cottages, all of which it seemed were tucked away within a garden of their own. So many gardens of all shapes
and sizes slipped passed. Roads gave way to smaller roads then winding country lanes.
Our home in London was a flat situated up a flight of concrete steps and my ‘garden‘
was the park my Mother took me to occasionally. I had never seen so much greenery, so many trees or saw and heard so
many birds singing. There was activity everywhere only this time instead of the cars, taxies, lorries, buses, shops,
flats and pavements that I usually heard and saw; it was nature that my senses were now witnessing and experiencing to the
full. Everything smelt so different and utterly intoxicating to me, and this magic has never left me and which I ache
to be back within and a part of again. The over-riding smell that day was of wet earth and leaves after the rain, a
musty, warm somehow comforting smell.
We
eventually drove down yet another narrow lane, lined all along the left hand side with enormous oak trees whose branches
bent down low over the tangled hedgerow. I felt all I had to do was reach out of the window to touch them as we drove
past. At that moment I fell in love with oak trees, sensing in them an ancient wisdom gained from the hundreds of years
they had stood watching the world go by. We finally stopped and my parents said we were ‘here’. We
went through a weathered wooden gate and walked up an overgrown garden path towards a front door. My Father then knocked
on the door of the house. An elderly lady answered with a big smile and invited us in, I learned later her name was
Mrs Harris or as I was instructed later, to call her ‘Auntie Linda’. As all children do, I soon became bored
listening to the ‘grown-ups’ talking and just longed to go out into the garden that I could see through the misted-up
sitting-room window. On asking, I was told that provided I take care not to get my clothes or white socks dirty then
I could!
I eagerly stepped down onto the
redbrick step and ventured out through the open back door leading into the garden. This was heaven. I took a deep
breath, how clean and sweet the air smelt, fresh and cool from the recent rain with that rich earthy smell wafting around
my nose. I looked down at an enormous worm slowly working its way across the wet path towards the soft earth and safety.
Over there was a snail also trapped by the puddles, sliding his way round the stones towards a clump of grass, leaving
a shiny silvery trail where he had been. Around the corner of the outside toilet I peeked and gazed at a gnarled Cox’s
apple tree in the middle of the lawn. How old the tree looked and what a beautiful shape the branches had grown into.
I wondered what its fruit would taste like but all I saw were a few rotting apples on the ground.
The garden was very overgrown, but I
didn’t care for to me it all looked wonderful and somehow full of secrets. All I knew was I wanted to be here
forever, to touch, smell and explore this wonderful garden.
Unfortunately, although I had been told to be careful
not to get dirty, I slipped on a drain cover and sat down with a thump onto the wet muddy ground, cold rainwater oozing into
my knickers and splashing my clean white socks. Being so young, I was scared of being told off and the shock of the
cold wet ground and bump on landing made me cry. My parents suddenly appeared and insisted I come back indoors.
I hated that – I just wanted to stay. I had only been in the garden a few minutes too - it was so unfair!
Some months later (the following year 1954) – how long I cannot remember for the passing of time means little to a
child, except that it always seemed so long for things to happen; but I found myself again seated in the back seat of another
rented car being driven again by my Father with my Mother sat beside him smiling and happy. This time the weather had
changed and was warm and sunny. It was so warm that the windows of the car were open allowing the birdsong and tantalising
smells of nature to flood in. This time the trees were covered in leaves that rustled softly in the late summer breeze.
We drove past scented gardens that simply overflowed with a profusion of many flowers in all colours of the rainbow.
All of a sudden something flew in through the window and started buzzing furiously round my face, which frightened me.
My Mother turned round and shooshed out whatever insect it was – all I remember was that it was green?! My Father
said I was now in the country and would have to start getting used to things like this because we were moving to the house
we had visited so many months before.
The old lady had gone and all the rooms were empty and echoed, as we walked
on the stained floorboards. My memory as to our belongings being brought by the removal lorry and moved in are hazy
and all that I hold of that day is that I was back out in the magic garden again knowing that this was now my new home and
garden to explore and love for years to come. Oh how things had changed since that first visit. The lawn had become
overgrown and ripe rosy apples were now hanging on the Cox’s apple tree, some of which had fallen into the long grass.
I watched with curiosity at the activity of the many yellow and black striped insects buzzing furiously around the fallen
apples knowing instinctively that they were to be avoided or else they’d hurt me. I still dislike wasps!
I gazed up the garden to see that it too had also become overgrown into a tangle of long grass, bleached dry into hay by
the long days of the summer sun. I walked towards it and found that it was almost as tall as I was. I ventured
in, hearing the sound of the rustling, crunching and snapping of the dried stalks underfoot. A spider suddenly appeared
in front of me hanging from her web and startled me. I didn’t then and still don’t today feel comfortable
with spiders; frightened I cried out and my Father was by my side reassuring and comforting me with a big smile on his face.
Maybe there was nothing to fear from this creature, but that still didn’t make me like it whatever my Father said.
From that day on time becomes a blur as to in which order events occurred, but all were filed away in my memory to
be held and treasured forever. Each year’s seasons followed on from the last in the every circling cycle of life,
which I experienced year after year, as I grew up surrounded by so much beauty around me in every way possible. A better
childhood environment would have been hard to find.
Both my parents adored the garden and spent much of their time
digging and weeding flowerbeds, cutting grass and planting flowers and vegetables. The soil was fine and sandy and my
Father took advantage of this by digging huge holes around the garden, much to the annoyance of my Mother and using the soft
yellow sand, to mix with concrete that he then made into the various paths that led around the garden.
At the top of the garden were two wooden
garden sheds where my Father kept an enormous amount of ‘stuff’ ranging from garden tools, decorating bits, tins
and pots of paint, thinners, creosote for fencing along with odd pieces of wood and boxes of unknown things that I later discovered
belonged to my Father when he was a boy. Books, lead soldiers and many other treasurers he kept there, some of which
I never saw. These sheds were also home to the biggest spiders I had ever seen and would rarely go inside for fear of
being confronted by one.
I remember my Father once finding a nest of mice with young still in it. I won’t
go into graphic detail but suffice to say it did not last long especially as some of the nesting material had once been one
of my Father’s childhood books. Huge dust covered spider’s webs hung in every corner and crevice.
It was hardly any wonder that on the occasions that my Father needed to make a concerted search for something that he entered
the large shed with the collar of his shirt turned up – just in case!!!! The biggest shed had the advantage of
a large window made up of small panes of glass. Flammable items such as paint and thinners my Father would move away
to the back of the shed where it was cooler and in the shade, as the heat generated by the sun shining through that window
during the summer months caused the interior to become very hot and dusty. Eventually, getting fed up with only having
the light from a torch to search for items during the winter months, my Father ran metal tubing containing an electric cable
up the garden thus enabling him to have a single light bulb hanging from the beam in the centre of the shed. However,
one always checked the light switch before touching it – those spiders were everywhere!
When we first moved
into The Croft, as the house was called, access to the front door was gained by walking up a narrow slopping path up and along
the grassy bank towards the wooden gate. The property along with others along Hullbrook Lane had been built back from
the roadside on a raised bank. In time, my Father decided this was not ideal and set about the enormous task of digging
out a driveway leading down to the lane. The excess earth he used to build up the bank at the front into which were
grown soil-retaining shrubs and conifers. This was a labour of love, as every shovelful of earth was dug by hand and
transported in the wheelbarrow to various sites around the garden as well as onto the front bank. The retaining brick
walls each side of the driveway eventually became covered with trailing plants which produced an abundance of white flowers
in the early summer. A beautiful white magnolia tree grew at the top of the driveway to the left whose flowers I never
grew tired of smelling the sweet perfume from or touching the soft silky petals. Before the drive was dug, I had had
a small patch of garden that my Father let me use at the base of that magnolia in which cornflowers of many colours grew from
seeds I planted. A line of tall cupressus trees lined the now concreted front path that led towards the front door.
In the front garden was a flowerbed in which my Mother had planted one of her favourite flowers – dahlias.
The only frustration experienced with these gorgeous blooms is that earwigs equally favour them. These small scorpion-like
insects have a habit of taking up residence within the curled petals, so a hearty ‘sniff’ is not recommended!
A variegated leafed shrub grew beneath the front room bay window, which produced pink flowers in the spring along with the
many different coloured crocuses, snowdrops and daffodils.
To the side of the house, before an extension was built,
was a shrubbery. Within this shrubbery were a purple magnolia, peach and plum trees and various other shrubs in profusion
together with two large camellia bushes that my Mother adored. One produced red flowers, the other white. However,
over the years their root systems became entwined resulting in rogue blooms that showed the opposing camellia’s colour.
As time went by more and more of the ‘white’ camellia’s flowers would blossom with ‘pale pink’
flowers with occasional darker pink stripes, whereas the red camellia bush would bring forth red blooms with odd white stripes
on the petals, much to the amusement of my parents. In fact, these shrubs became quite a talking point amongst friends
and neighbours who witnessed the result of this strange love affair. These two camellias were indeed special, as no
one to our knowledge had camellia bushes with flowers like we had on ours!
In time my Father bought a large number
of stones, which he then laid into a semi-circular crazy paving design making a patio area at the back of the house.
The word patio he hated and insisted it was a backyard! As the garden gently slopped upwards, this necessitated a low
brick retaining wall was needed to edge and hold the lawn in place and ‘finish off’ the patio of paving stones.
Again, hours and hours of work went into this using of course cement made with our garden’s own sand which was blended
into the mix.
The raised back lower lawn was where the old Cox’s apple tree stood in the centre and off one
thick branch my Father hung a rope and wooden seated swing for my younger sister. Here the story must be told of the
time my sister was happily swinging when suddenly one of the ropes snapped resulting in her flying backwards through the air
into the flowerbed behind. Although she was a little bruised and scratched from the rosebush thorns, the whole scene
had looked so funny and if only had been captured on film would still to this day make her laugh I’m sure – plaits
in the air, a cry and then seeing her seated amongst the delphiniums, lupins and rose bushes some six feet behind still makes
me smile! Lupins I still retain a fondness for, remembering so well their unusual peppery scent. The delphiniums
grown were of every shade of blue imaginable and scattered in amongst these tall flowers, snapdragons grew. A favourite
past time of my sister was to wait until a bee popped into one of the flower-heads in search of nectar and then she would
hold the tube-like petals shut giggling at the buzzing of the furious bee trapped inside. One day a bee won his revenge
and she was stung. She never played that game again!
My Father constructed an intricate wooden trellis across
the lower third of the back garden to divide the areas of flowers, shrubs and roses and the larger area behind where all manner
of fruit, vegetables and salad plants were grown. Weaving in and out of the trellis was a vigorous climbing rose that
produced double pink button-like flowers in abundance. In the centre of the trellis he constructed an archway through
which the path continued in two directions. If I remember correctly, a white climbing rose grew up one side of the arch
and a red on the other. The path continued straight through the archway, and led up the garden to the two wooden sheds
at the top of the garden. To the right immediately after the archway, another path led behind the rose-covered trellis,
which then turned left and led up alongside a hedge, which divided my parents property from our neighbours. I spent
many hours learning to roller-skate along these paths using the metal washing-line pole as my break or the garden broom!
The washing-line stretched from just behind the trellised archway right up to the top of the garden, stopping just before
the sheds. Each weekend my Mother would wash the family linen in the ‘gas-boiler’ sited on the red quarry-tiled
kitchen floor, and after wringing out the excess water using a mangle, would then peg the ‘whites’ along the line
to blow dry.
The lighting of the gas-boiler was somewhat
of an art involving my Mother getting down on her hands and knees with lighted match then turning the gas tap on to light
a flame beneath which then heated the water. A loud bang was always heard when successful! My Mother would peg
washing out whenever there was the slightest breeze and in colder months often brought in washing that had frozen on the line.
The sight of my Fathers shirts with sleeves stiffly outstretched with frost still makes me smile.
Now the
vegetable garden, what a haven this was. A large part to the right of the straight path was given over to potatoes.
I remember so well walking bare-footed in the cool soft sandy soil spilling in between my toes amongst the runs of potato
plants, digging them up carefully to reveal beautiful new potatoes. After being gently cooked were then topped with
a slowly melting knob of butter that slid down each side onto the plate and garnished with some common garden mint. Eaten,
as part of a main meal or cold in a salad, there has never been anything that tasted so good since. My parents grew
a wonderful variety of vegetables carrots, peas, parsnips, onions, sprouts, and cabbages and during the summer months my Mother
grew lettuces, tomatoes, marrows and cucumbers. She also grew a variety of herbs; the two I remember her using most
being mint and chives. Chives she used to chop finely and sprinkle onto potato salad or float on a chicken soup together
with fried cubes of bread – there were no croutons to be bought in those days, you simply made your own! Mint
my Mother used either fresh on potatoes cooked or cold or made into a sauce that was then liberally spread over roast lamb
dinners. She would also make sufficient sauce to last us throughout the winter months until the plants would start growing
again the following spring.
My Mother took on the responsibility of growing a variety of runner beans. Early
each spring, my Father would erect a crossed trellis of six-foot long bamboo canes to support the vigorous common climbing
green runner bean, the flowers of which are red. Blackfly was a common problem and was combated by my parents using
a mixture of washing-up liquid in water and then sprayed onto the invading insects. Later, this was then hosed off with
clean water washing away the dead greenfly and leaving the beans to continue without further intrusion. The other two
varieties of runner beans that my Mother grew were a dwarf variety and soft tender yellow French beans. All three varieties
were delicious and so tender. There was something so satisfying and comforting in being able to pick up the metal colander
in the kitchen and wander off into the garden and choose one’s vegetables for a meal. When I eventually left home,
I was never been able to do this ever again except when visiting my parents. The garden I eventually had when married,
had thick clay soil and was inhabited by an army of indestructible Neanderthal-minded slugs and snails that possessed a voracious
appetite and devoured anything green on sight above and below ground level.
Behind the beans was the treasured
strawberry bed. My parents tended these plants with gentle loving care ensuring that we always had a bumper crop of
juicy strawberries. To protect the fruit from equally enthusiastic birds, my Father tried using black cotton criss-crossed
over the plants tied to little sticks around the perimeter of the bed, as a deterrent. Sadly this trapped and injured
too many birds that attempted access to the fruit. Eventually a special strawberry net was purchased and erected over
the plants. Unfortunately, the birds were a very determined bunch enticed by the tempting red fruit and many a time
I would find usually a female blackbird or starling trapped either in or under the net, which then needed freeing. At
least the net did not injure the birds, as the black cotton had and once freed, they would fly off to plot another avenue
of access to the inviting fruit!
Beside the strawberry bed grew a large
cooking apple tree that produced enormous green apples. We had a variety of both eating and cooking apple trees in the
garden the fruit from which was harvested and then stored in the autumn. We then enjoyed the fruit well into the winter
months cooked or eaten in a variety of ways. My Mother could bake an apple pie to die for and this was frequently our
dessert following our ‘traditional Sunday roast’ complete with large jug of perfectly made thick yellow creamy
custard - and never a lump in sight! When the seasons permitted the pies or tarts she made varied according to which
fruit was ready for picking. We had a Victoria plum, pear and peach trees too, from which the fruit was either made
into pies or eaten as picked.
Coming back to the large area of the upper back garden that was our vegetable plot,
as well as the potatoes, a variety of fruit bushes were also grown i.e. red and blackcurrant bushes, as well as raspberries,
loganberries and gooseberries. There was even an area where my Mother grew sweetcorn. There is nothing quite like
freshly cropped sweetcorn cooked and eaten within an hour of picking covered with butter and flavoured with salt and pepper!
As the soil was fine and sandy it dried quickly in the heat from the sun. The vegetables therefore needed daily
watering throughout the summer months. Like a ritual each evening, my parents could be seen ferrying water to and fro
in watering cans, as well as using a hose, until dusk forced them both back indoors to a well earned cup of tea.
On the opposite side of the lane the front windows of our house (and that included my bedroom) overlooked farm fields and
I fondly remember hearing the cows moo, as they munched on the fertile field of grass. ‘Chewing the cud’
my Mother would say, remembering her days as a child living on a farm in far away Austria where she had grown up on a farm
that had a herd of cows that she milked, as part of her daily chores once home from school.
I spent the happiest
times of my childhood within this garden doing all the things that most children do such as make ‘mud-pie’ biscuits,
perfume for my Mother using fallen rose petals in water and so much more. And this was just the garden. Beyond
the garden were hedgerows, a river and riverbanks and fields, not to mention nearby woods and heathland to explore and enjoy
once I was old enough to be allowed to go for walks on my own with our dog Niggs.
Autumn time, my Father would
clear the garden of rubbish, hedge clippings and branches pruned from the trees. Then he would light a bonfire.
The smell of those wood fires still lingers in my memory today. He loved his bonfires and I loved nothing more than
helping him. I would be wearing a thick woollen jumper that most likely had been knitted by my Mother and warm coat
and would stand chattering away to him, as he carefully added bits of collected garden rubbish to the fire. The sparks
would fly and the blue smoke would curl upwards and away in the cool of the late autumn breeze.
Other memories that clammer for attention
are:
My Father showing me Evening Primrose flowers only opening in the evening.
Smelling the gorgeous smell of night
scented stock flowers in the evenings.
The little copse behind the garden sheds at top of garden, which I loved to explore,
even though told numerous times not to! The compost heap where my Father often found adders enjoying the warmth it generated.
The old push mower my Father used to mow the lawns, and the wonderful smell of cut grass after. The 1p I earned for each cabbage
white butterfly caught to protect our cabbages from them laying eggs and the resultant caterpillars that then ruined our leafed
vegetables.
The 3 baby blackbirds I hand reared after their nest was destroyed.
Mother’s day each
Spring when my sister and I would explore the oasis of wild rhododendron bushes gathering a bunch of flowers made up of catkins,
pussywillow and primrose flowers in the farm field opposite our home. A few weeks later, the bunches became bluebells
and wood anemones.
Hearing church bells every Sunday, going to Sunday School and eventually joining the choir and
having my first ‘crush’ on one of the members – Tom Cornwall was his name, although later I was to actually
go out with another member called Chris Harding.
The Fox hunts seen most Sunday afternoons galloping across the
farm fields opposite each autumn after an elusive fox, and the fox that once ran into our garden, eyes wide with terror and
steaming breath panting from an open mouth, body quivering with exhaustion and desperation.
The large oak tree
that I witnessed being cut down, whose screaming wrenching tearing noise, as it fell upset me so much I cried.
The
sounds of owls hooting, foxes barking, the snorting noises the hedgehogs made and the comical speed when they chose to run
across the lawn. Seeing fruit bats at dusk; and with no light pollution of a town seeing the full beauty of the moon
and a night sky full of stars. So long ago now – so very long ago.
I wish my Mother, would have stopped
saying over the years that I never appreciated what I had or how much it meant then and still does today. I will always
be grateful for having had the opportunity of living where we did and the freedom of growing up and having access to that
wonderful garden and environment. I love nature as passionately today as I did then. Those memories will never
die or be forgotten. My childhood images of our garden in Shamley Green and my love affair with flowers and nature generally
were to eventually lead me to becoming an Aromatherapist. I fell under nature’s spell the first time Daddy drove
us to view The Croft, unkempt and wild though the garden was in the beginning it still held a wild, raw beauty and through
both my parent's love and hard work it grew into a beautiful haven for me, peaceful and tranquil on which my childhood
memories were built and which I still hold close to my heart today and live through again and again in my dreams.
Is it any wonder that having held so many wonderful memories for so many years that I ache so much to have a little of it
back to enjoy, as I now grow towards my own old age? I need some of those memories to become reality again. I
wish I could live in a village again, not in a town or flat but a little bungalow with my own back door that opens out into
my own little garden where I can again plant herbs, shrubs and flowers, drink in through all my senses the wonder of nature
and witness the changing of the seasons from birth in the Spring to maturity in the Summer and Autumn to finally death in
the Winter as the yearly cycle of life continues. To see hills and trees around me and be lulled to sleep listening
to the wind rustling the leaves of nearby trees, – not cars, ambulance and police sirens, trains and drunken yobs at
all hours. Only then will my heart sing, my spirit soar, my soul find peace and my eyes become bright with joy, if I
can become once more involved in and a part of the magic of Mother Nature and the treasures she offers freely to those who
love her.
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