Now, I know this is going to be about the development of a theory of how gardens work as art, but the arrival there is gradual, and I feel it is necessary to start from the beginning with a sort of horticultural autobiography. So let's backtrack a bit. I paid my dues.
My first job was for £42 a week on a job creation scheme. As an ex-student of languages and former Trainee Accountant, I wasn't looking favourite for even this lowly position, and after eighteen months unemployed, doing what I termed 'voluntary work', it looked like another opportunity was going to pass me by. I saved the day by showing the panel my calloused hands, and asking 'do they look like the hands of an office boy?' In truth, my 'voluntary work' had had a positive effect on my soft hands, even though it largely involved doing stupid things like sitting in trees pruning branches on my own, using a Victorian two-man saw. I got the job, though. All's well that ends. Well.
I had to walk six miles to work and six miles back each day, and the team I was working with was pretty wayward. The establishment was a five-acre organic smallholding on sand, where we grew vegetables for the benefit of trainees with learning disabilities.
The boss was an older bloke, whose sole qualification was that he had had an allotment for years. He let it be known that his nickname was 'Big Dick'. Say no more. He was off one day, so with the promise of a liquid lunch, I got the lads to dig most of an acre of potato field. It was easy-digging sandy soil, and they got quite fired up. Went at it like the clappers, intent on proving a point. Boss came back next day, made us do it again, because I had got them to use forks, and he wanted it done with spades. So they spent the next few days digging all the weeds they had turned under back up to the surface again, and much slower, with spades. My first lesson in the pointlessness of leaving tradition unchallenged. We had done a much better, faster and more efficient job with forks.
The other lesson I learnt there, although it never sank in as a guide to good practice, was when I let it slip that I liked cutting hedges. I was given a mixed country hedge to cut with hand shears, and took the trouble to make a neat job of it. Apparently I took too long making it look good, and should have just done a rough job to keep it in check. Well, a rough job has never appealed to me, so I never changed my approach as a result of that. As for speed, it was the first I'd ever done under the stop watch. I would get faster in time, no doubt, and learn a few things about the right tools for the job.
Mind you, all the walking and working meant that I was sleeping well, and I was enjoying this new life. I began to get interested in learning more, so I snagged a weekend job in a Garden Centre, where I started learning about plants. They were good to me there, and let me plant worse-for-wear plants around the car park as well as my other duties.
Meanwhile, I carried on at the farm, where it became clear that it was necessary to prove myself as a 'man', which generally involved swearing and drinking a lot, and fighting. It was a bit like lion cubs testing themselves against the opposition, without malice, but you had to make the grade. Apparently I was pretty fast in the wrestling, and passed the test. Swearing and drinking I was already a master of. Good thing, or my future might have been very different.
That lasted a year, at the end of which I got a job with the council, working in parks. It was a dismal, aggressive environment, where hardly anybody liked gardening, almost nobody wanted to work, and the slightest sign of moisture sent everybody scurrying to the mess-room to be rained off and play poker. I like a game of poker. It was about the only bit of the job I did like.
The few of us who showed any inclination at all towards gardening were selected to be sent to day-release to do our City and Guilds in Decorative Horticulture, and I showed a bit of aptitude, so at the end of that I was signed up for the Master of Horticulture. All this meant that someone high up had seen some potential in me, and I was fast-tracked for promotion. The Manager responsible for this was a hated figure, accused by the lads of hiding in bushes and spying on them, so I was naturally by association also widely despised as an upstart brown-noser, which couldn't have been further from the truth. My rise to level of Chargehand was not popular, particularly as it was over the heads of others who had been there for twenty years and more. No one seemed to appreciate that the fact that these same people had been prosecuted in the past for their workplace activities might be a hindrance to their advancement. It was the sort of environment where giving an unpopular instruction would result in someone trying to back a dumper truck over you. A place where it was not unheard of for a gang of men to tie a rope to one of their colleagues and haul him forty feet up a tree and leave him there for the whole day, not knowing if they would come back to release him. It was an intimidating atmosphere, and sabotage was rife. Anything to get out of work. Brand new scarifiers would be adjusted to dig huge gouges in the bowling greens. It was a test for me, based on the assumption that I knew nothing because I was new. It took about a minute to readjust the machine to the right settings, and no one tried that one again. But it was hard going, and I spent most of my four years there depressed, looking for the next, hopefully better, step forward in my career, and a more favourable start for my family.
It became clear that the M.Hort. would lead to a desk job, which I didn't want, as I loved hard work and plants, so I started looking at jobs which were, frankly, beyond my ability at that time. I aimed for Head Gardener jobs in Historic House Gardens. I didn't really know enough about it to know how limited my knowledge was for this kind of work, but eventually my perseverance paid off despite that, and I had my first offer - to construct a garden from scratch in Scotland. I had eight months to complete it before a Royal opening. I felt like I had arrived. More on that tomorrow.
Meanwhile, a leaving presentation had been arranged at the Council Depot. This was an unexpected surprise. Most of the twenty-five lads turned up, partly because it had been arranged for lunchtime, when they would mostly be back anyway, and partly because they would attend anything which involved a few minutes off work. I was handed a present and instructed to open it. The guy sitting beside me muttered under his breath 'fucking awful clock', and he was right. Cheap, plastic shiny gold-coloured carriage clock from Argos. I didn't take it with me to my new home.
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