Seventy odd years agrowing – some of them odd indeed

I entered this world within the hallowed confines of Queen Charlotte’s Hospital the then favoured natal clinic for Royalty and keeping within my theme - on the 657 trolleybus route.

Quite how my parents managed the feat has been lost in the mists but suffice it to say that I narrowly missed the more rural nativity of a tied cottage in the depths of Berkshire. It was my father’s constant search for work as a first fixing carpenter that had us lodging in two rooms of my nan’s (mum’s mother) house in Hounslow – not far from the starting point of route 657. My maternal grandfather had been employed by London Transport in the paintshop at Chiswick Bus Works and the fact that trolleybuses terminated close to affordable housing in Hounslow was fundamental in his choice of residence. Sadly, he departed for the great workshop above six months before my appearance, though l gather he was one of those quiet heroes that plod on resolutely mundanely, working, fathering a small family and surprisingly for an hourly paid man – paid a mortgage and bought a house.   

That small back garden, overhung by a Lane’s Prince Albert apple, with its bemossed brick path first introduced me to Nature – I was hooked immediately by the other worldliness of woodlice, slugs and snails, their pneumostomes fascinating long before I knew the term and I’m afraid that I anguished many by probing their tentacles and eyesprouts – but torture far from my mind. Not the least intriguing addition was the horrified faces both my mum and nan put on when I ventured into the kitchen festooned with my garden pals. Thus discovering the joy of being considered un enfant terrible – then spent a goodly part of my youth proving the point. I have preserved a bedroom window view to where I was sent in disgrace for attempting to cut down said apple tree – though later the oozing wounds healed and the scars occupied by woolly aphids gave opportunity for further study.

One bright morning, I soon picked up my mum’s summery aura and earnest appeals to ready myself – we were off on a trolleybus! Our destination an airy fairy mention overawed by brute motive forces. I sat in the front seat so I could see our driver operate the controls and joy of joys – the conductor had to change direction of the pickup arms before we set off. Mum kept up an itinerary of our path, The Bell and Hounslow High Street, then my first sight of a wonderful impossibly large building – Pears House, “that where I went to school” mum said in a whisper, in case listening passengers thought her boastful. Busch Corner and the first whiffs of a distinctive niff, it grew stronger as the colours drained from the scenery until all was blackened brickwork and windblown litter. Suddenly a blast of heat penetrated even the dust laden air, smoke and fire issued above a tall wall – “that’s the gas works” said mum “they make coke there – the funny smell results.”  Happier days when coke was neither a drug or a fizzy drink.

Little did I know that day moves were afoot to clean the air, the coking plant would shortly close and along with burning nutty slack in homefire grates, would become a thing of the past. Brentford and its environs sank into industrial dereliction reminiscent of Iron Curtain countries – remaining so for decades. That such a wasteland could be swept away and the skyline transformed into a Sci Fi landscape of gleaming high rise apartments would have seemed an impossible fancy – though one old thing that remains – is the traffic snarl up approaching Kew.

Our trolleybus trundled along, its arms negotiating the tangle of conductors and straining supports at the junction. Finally it slowed to a stop, for here we alighted and walking began with yet more excitement crossing a huge bridge – would the tide be ebbing or flowing?

But in those days I needed a lift to see over the parapet, assistance that was not forthcoming “come on” said mum “there’s a way to go yet.” And so there was, my Startrite sandals skipping over the cracks in the paving slabs thus avoiding witches. Our destination loomed ahead of me before I realized as I’d been so absorbed looking down at my feet.

And now another pair of feet, large feet, in big shiny boots. Gazing up, I could see they belonged to a kind of policeman – a big jovial looking policeman – the very chap I imagined when listening to the Laughing Policeman on our wireless. Mum handed this policeman a single penny for our entrance fee and for the first of many times I pushed the revolving turnstile all by myself. We had reached Kew Gardens – a Royal Garden – expectancy was high to meet the Queen “she’s probably very busy dear” said mum.

Of course we were faced then by the same dilemma all visitors face at Kew’s gates – where to go first! And I must admit to not clearly remembering everything I did see on that first visit – it went by in a whirl of confused senses and blurred images which blurred even more over the intervening years. I know we made it to the Palm House as I traced out the letters Decimus Burton with a lazy leg over the dedication plate “that’s a funny name” said I. “People had funny names in the past dear, he was the man who built this wonderful greenhouse.” I knew my dad built things and wondered whether he’d ever have his name in a floor. We even toured the upper walkway despite my mum’s dislike of dizzying heights and steamy heat to marvel at being in the tops of palms bearing flowers and fruit puzzlingly called dates that I had imagined to be strings of numbers!

Much later we sat and ate sandwiches in yet another greenhouse before the original Sherman Hoyt painted desert backdrop – probably kindling my love of cacti – I later asked Father Christmas for some plants and he obliged – quite remarkable given the cultivation difficulties posed by living at the North Pole.

All too soon it seemed another jolly policeman on a bicycle rode passed calling “Closing Time” - I was fit to drop and perhaps the burning sensation in my feet and trembling knees seared the nearest tree’s shape into my brain – whatever the reason the Stone Pine remained a firm favourite – a must see on most other visits and like many others, I shed a tear or two at its demise some sixty years later.

It’s an easy matter for folk viewing my life with hindsight benefit – that my first Kew visit was instrumental in forming my horticultural future -  the truth of which, as can be said of many popular conceptions – is both yes and no. I reckon that my nan’s mossy bricks, resident invertebrates and the heady scent of Philadelphus (only ever called Syringa in our house) set my course and whatever its direction, my love of earthy connection would see my hands in soil.

I am forever grateful that my mum taught me to read and personifying  precociousness I quickly graduated from Janet & John to the daily newspaper – its litany of worldly disaster juxtaposed by a strip cartoon of an old mustachioed Mr Digwell in his veggie patch; however; my reading prowess often belied childhood innocence that had me bewildered how funny little stamps converted into petrol. My dad brought home a book and waved them at my mum – “Look, dear – it’s happening again” and thus introduced the bane of the modern era – dependence upon oil.

Avid, doesn’t fully describe my ravenous appetite for the written word – I read morning, noon and night – consuming text and bombarding my poor mother question after question. She couldn’t always answer but I owe her another extraordinary debt that she never failed to say “but I know how to find out.”  It was such quests that took us off on further trolleybus journeys to the museums of South Kensington where I learnt to memorise and pronounce Diplodocus carnegii discovering that Life was millions of years old rather being created bright and beautifully in six days – I’ve been profoundly interested (some would say obsessively absorbed) in the subject ever since!

My progress through the halls of academe was generally a fraught affair – my pre-war vintage teachers not taking so well to the frank opinion I was used to expressing at home.

As a case in point – I was soundly thrashed for propounding Continental Drift to my deskmate when I should have been paying attention to the monotone drone that memory failed to record. Being a fanatic jigsaw puzzler – I couldn’t fail to notice that most of Earth’s land masses might well fit together. Cutting up a school atlas and arranging the pieces on a suitable ball only engendered my tutor’s facial horror and a bill for 6/6d.

Much of my time in one class was spent watching the fruit of Malus sylvestris x John Dowie fall to the ground and reaching another “Eureka!” moment – in that I realised Mr Newton didn’t discover gravity by so doing – but scientific method – dropped items ALWAYS fall – no apple ever jumped back on the tree! He looked for the cause.

To be fair, that teacher wanted all 57 children ( yes, 57!) in her class to do well and sought to prepare us for the Brave New World we were all headed for – she thrashed and beat us merely to quell the near riot so often reigning; however; she also praiseworthily, arranged to visit museums - the Horniman  (a favourite for us evolutionists!) and interesting stuff at the Wallace collection.

Understandably – I often travelled there in a 657 trolleybus.

Mr Pears was one of the first industrial magnates, making a fortune from soap (ironically humourous to think that the great unwashed earned him the cash to splash out on this luxurious pile!) However; his builders didn’t break new ground as a house already existed – put up by a certain Mr Joseph Banks – a name much associated with Kew Gardens. The whole edifice has been thoroughly, yet tastefully refurbished and is now encompassed by West Thames College who graciously gave access for a short voyage of nostalgia recently.

As career choices beckoned, I oscillated by the day - the laboratory or the great outdoors like a cat between two fires – it seemed impossible to combine both - two things affected my choice.

The first was a visit to a Mainframe Computer – I capitalise the name because everyone did so in speech. It was the size of a small house, was the temperature of the Kew tropics, hummed and whirred while white and brown coated men attended as drones in a hive. Then another to a big Pharma company where men in perfect suits showed us drug packets while hordes of giggling girls exited their packing line. There – staringly before me were lives laid out – programmers, wiremen,  execs and worker bees - my contemporaries, all allergic to rain and mud eagerly signed up. On my way home I called into our local nursery and to quote a phrase said “Gisuss a job!”

Kew or more precisely – an unknown Kew Gardener, had advised me to foster somewhere that could offer me practical experience of a professional nature as growing veggies in our 20ft x 30ft back garden didn’t quite cut the mustard Horticulturally. Mind you, by this time, I was no stranger to mind-numbing agricultural slog as I’d often joined the casual labour force on a nearby farm, where I was known universally as “Lad” in recognition of my 12 years of life. In fact, the Ganger was reluctant to engage me at first as “thisus men’s work tha’noes” however; he relented and very soon the Gang were telling me to slow down! We’d all set to thinning acres of saladings with an onion hoe – only unbending when our heads hit the opposite fence. The upside being allowed to exercise their heavy horse (I’m an incurable Horsey!)

Did turns on a primitive combine harvester that filled 1.5 cwt sacks dumped in the field – then picked them up by hand with a carter and similarly unloaded at the granary. Probably the origin of my arthritis!  Spud and other pickings in seasonal piecework – I’ve filled nets of Brussels sprouts Christmas week for 3d a time and cut 6d boxes of straw forced Rhubarb in February on land now under Heathrow’s runway. Notwithstanding the poor wages – I was often the highest paid – one thing my dad taught me – “don’t come home till you’ve earned your keep!”  Compared with that – nursery work was a doddle!

Back to London Road, Isleworth - the wall below the magnificently spreading Oak, mostly hid Thomas Kember’s Kingsley Nurseries that tried, and for the most part succeeded, in keeping itself secret – the owners seemingly  embarrassed by being “in trade” to strongly advertise commercial enterprise - thumbed  their noses at the thought of attracting too many paying customers in preference to preserving the air of an interwar years cricket match – during the tea interval.

(I trust you noticed the trolleybus.)

They were in for a bit of a shock!

However; once they had assimilated my youthful enthusiasm, all of us benefited from the experience with me enjoying a scope and latitude virtually unique – for I speak here of times when being an under gardener, let alone a garden boy - involved much doffing of caps, heavy boots, leather elbow patches and dutiful respect to one’s betters.

The Nursery had once been a walled Victorian garden used solely to supply the spacious mansions either side, shortly before the First War, Mr T.K. – or the Old Man as he was known in the family, took it in hand and expanded into smallholding, sadly the extra land had been sequestered after the Second War and the boundaries shrank back to much as they had been – around two acres; however, my work areas extended into the large gardens surrounding both mansions. Each laid out to fine lawns and floral beds identified by their feature statue – I used to fancy that the goddess Ceres was keeping an eye on me. There was plenty for her to watch as my first job was to clear a grass tennis court untended for thirty years!

My immediate boss was Harold, one of the Old Man’s sons – I can’t ever recall him pulling rank – his every desire expressed as an enquiring suggestion, “I tell you what Lad, upper lawn could do with a mow and the soil bench is low.” Thus I spent my last school summer holiday sweating and enveloped in two stroke fumes – as September dawned it was agreed for me to Officially join the firm basking in my title of Student Gardener.

Perversely, on my return to school only two doors up the London Road – the Headmaster, who had for many legitimate reasons, often sought to expel me decided to stop me leaving midterm – or try. I simply stopped going and the Old Man wrote to assure authority that I was in safe hands – so long as I had tools in mine!

Tradition had much of horticulture firmly gripped and the Swinging Sixties failed to so much as graze the xylem generally and exemplified inside the nursery wall. For an instance – I discovered a list inscribed on the doorframe of the propagating house – it detailed plants and numbers to be unfailingly raised to fill those bestatued flowerbeds. It bore the date 1834 and the joke is – the wages hadn’t changed either!

Thirty shillings for me, less my National Insurance stamp – fifteen to mum for keep, ten for travel, leaving me with just enough for my midday meal (only ever called dinner by horny handed sons of toil whom I had had joined!)

Being the lowliest member of staff, it befell my lot to fetch the Elevensies – one of the more pleasant traditions of Olde England and there in my visits to the kitchens, Mrs Hobbs the Headcook & Bottlewasher bid me make the milky coffee. Often ensconced in the Aga range warmth was an obvious patrician Lady introduced to me as Mrs Prior though “Auntie” elsewhere. It was her gracious personage that fixed a Damascine point in this story. Conjure the combined attributes of Dame Maggie Smith and Lady Bracknell and you’ll not be far off – “YOUNG MAN!” she accosted imperiously “If you wish to make your way seriously – I ADVISE you to find connection with Kew Gardens. I shall arrange with Harold to give time orf so to do!”  

I was to learn that Auntie’s wishes were obeyed to the letter as in the House she was Queen Bee who mostly treated her family with contempt but was quite liberal with her largess to “workers”  - every Christmas and birthday I could expect the summons “YOUNG MAN” - on attendance, she would give me a one pound note (which I suspect Mrs. Hobbs had ironed) and a hominy upon anything on her mind – swindling governments being foremost. She’d inherited a small fortune – it’s debatable whether her family originated the department store or Mr. Selfridge – she patriotically invested in War Bonds which now languished at 25% of their former value. Information that hardly did much for me as a thirty bob a week employee but would later come in very handy as Life’s turns oft beggar belief and land me in a financial brokerage.

Harold gave me Wednesday mornings – the Nursery kept to shop early closing which in Isleworth, was Wednesday afternoon – quite amazing to think in our age of 24/7/365 consumerism that every town had an early closing day and everywhere resembled a ghost town on Sunday.

Thus I arrived  one blustery autumn at the gates of Kew (and by now you know by what means! ) completely unannounced and seeking to gain immediate privileged access to all areas. I shied away from making known my quest to the Kew Constabulary – as my dad was moved in copious mirth to relate the time when he’d sent a particularly dense apprentice carpenter – to search for a plywood tree – the constables quickly caught on to the jolly jape and sent the poor chap on a fruitless trek of a lifetime. I opted to approach a working group – what would be my opening gambit? Engaging artisans, I’d found, is fraught with more pitfalls than asking a girl out for the first time – I decided honesty was the best policy – “I’ve done loads of farm work but switched to nursery – the Guv’nor would like me to join you.” - “Not as simple as that.” Said a man appointing himself spokesperson. “You’d have to write in.” “Hmm – I was expecting such – can you give me details - BTW – is that plain Philadelphus virginal?” “Why do you ask?” “I’ve propagating Philadelphus 'Manteau d'Hermine' this week, similar but better I think.”  When the bloke replied “Oh you do, do you?” I thought I’d blown it – but he relented “then they must be teaching you something at your place – where is it – what else have you done?” I’d blagged my way in!

Thus I became a regular “volunteer” in much the same way as I had on the farm and applied myself in the name of Kew for the sheer pleasure and zero pay.

Now, if you’re still with me, I’ll apologise in advance because I’m drawing the ball by ball commentary to a close by jumping forward more than sixty years – the trolleybuses are long gone (though some had an extended life in Spain) even the Routemaster buses that replaced them have demised and I have the choice of two vehicles to drive myself and I seemed to have collected a wife and two children en route. Schemes to feed and clothe them had me put in thirty years close society with steel rebars and concrete until I managed to uncement myself by forming my own landscaping company – truly transforming the land with machines the size of small dinosaurs.

There have been a great many return visits to Kew – my young daughters rapt by giant fern Angiopteris evecta  evoking the steamy heat would uncurl its other worldly furry croziers while they watched and envelope them – they spurned the popular Victoria amazonica in favour of the blue green clawlike racemes of the Jade vine and gladly trotted to Chokushi-Mon  - then vied for a shoulder carry back. Both had favourite trees – nowadays, I personally equate with Quercus benderi which standing on its Syon Vista outlying bank,  I’m sure is passed off by many visitors as an average tree, an Oak among 12,000 choices; however; I’ve always fancied that we have few things in common – we’ve both seen a bit of Life – had some surgery and could do with some more but we’re still there, not looking bad for our age - keeping on keeping on.

To be in the shadow of a great tree can be humbling – we are so puny in comparison but for me the truly humbling experience was being admitted to Kew Guild and thus to be not only associated with the great and good of Kew past but to meet its young future – such a privilege in my seventies. Where else in the world could I meet the writer of a dissertation on haustoria in plant parasitism and engage in the quantum aspects of electron tunnelling during photosynthesis! Though I’m certain that the two latter physics minded students remember me as that crazy old guy who came to Kew on a trolleybus.

Following a Guild function late in an evening, I passed the School of Horticulture where every lamp still burned as swatting Dip students occupied the workstations … and here was me - letting myself out of the Jodrell Laboratory electronic gate!

A distinctive voice sounded in my head  “YOUNG MAN! I see you’ve found a Kew connection.” Yes, many thanks Auntie – you were a marvellous inspiration.

Alan Clark, 2025.