Summer in the Garden

I remember it as a rather damp, grey sort of summer in the mid sixties when I commenced my summer job working in the garden. I can remember listening to Simon and Garfunkel and Thunderclap Newman on the radio. Sometimes on good days I cycled all the way pedalling up and down the various hills that you don’t really notice when you are in a car or bus. I would then work all morning in the field and happily ride home in the late afternoon early evening, oh the stamina of youth!

It is now time to introduce Denis’s partner to the equation, Mr Michael Buckland. As I arrived early that first morning, he zoomed up the drive in the ubiquitous Austin Mini, turned abruptly left with a rough sound of crunching gravel, reversing into a small space beneath the shade of a giant beech tree. I am not too sure if this was the first time of our meeting? I may have met him on the stall, but at that time I was so focused on my mentor that he didn’t figure much in my consciousness.

Michael had a rather swarthy complexion, a protruding jaw, unkempt black hair that kept falling in his eyes that were dark and deep. He had a rather gypsy like appearance and I took a dislike to him immediately! He was an interloper in my rather selfish and insular self absorbed world. Over time my views of him changed significantly and we became firm friends. He was like an older brother to me, full of wit, deep thought and a master of the pottery wheel. An unlikely pair, we were thrown together initially by our mutual love of the place. I have always thought that those that turned up at the door, including abandoned cats and dogs, were somehow orphans of a storm, outcasts in a crazy world and it became our sanctuary.

The plan was, in exchange for helping out in the garden in the mornings; Denis would then teach me the rudiments of his craft in the afternoons. Michael directed me in the garden and I started by cleaning cloches, making seed trays with a strange contraption, weeding out between the rows of carrots, onions and artichokes. At first I found it hard work and I seemed to notice every ache in my bones and back, but after awhile I found the quiet, gentle, rhythmic routine really quite contemplative. I enjoyed the sounds of the wind, the smell of elder and the beauty of my surroundings. If I stopped and just listened I could sense a still silence that brought a real sense of joy and other worldliness.