“A Proper Sort of Gardener”
(for my father; 1939-2023)
Pencil, pastel, & watercolor
2024
My family is perhaps odd in that none of the women have any interest in anything horticultural beyond occasionally re-arranging some flowers that were brought in, or finding a new yardman every twenty years or so. In contrast?…my father, great uncle, and great-grandfather (all of whom taught me) were rather celebrated gardeners. And, yes, one could usually find one or two small bottles of whiskey out in the garden-shed.
My funny (he really WAS funny) father died this past year….or is it almost two years?. In any case, this title is taken from a song I’ve known for many years……by the inimitable June Tabor. The song and words (see below) are just beyond lovely. Many of my friends (We’re all in or hitting our sixties) have lost their fathers in the past few years.
Go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUSywYlrrV8
“Once upon a time I found a garden,
Picked the brightest things that I could see;
An apron full of Mr Harding’s flowers,
I didn’t know that he was watching me.
Straight away my mother ran to tell him
Wondering what he would say or do.
Mr Harding smiled and said, “She’s just a little child;
I knew that she’d be picking them for you.”
……By the fire my dad would read me stories.
One of them concerned a garden too,
Where the lion and the lamb lay down together,
And every lovely fruit and flower grew.
The gardener let his children in to play there,
Delighting in the brightness of the day,
But when they went exploring and took a fruit to taste
He cursed them both and sent them on their way.
……..Even then I realized, in my childish mind
That he wasn’t a proper gardener of the Mr Harding kind.
…..Mr Harding’s garden was all taken
By lesser men with concrete in their minds.
Factory chimneys grew instead of daisies,
No butterflies from that assembly line.
My mum, she faded faster than a flower.
Dad sat in the darkness and cried.
Mr Harding walks a little slower than before,
But still he tends the grave where they both still lie.
…..Wherever it is they’ve gone to I hope that they will find
A proper sort of garden of the Mr Harding kind.
…….A foolish woman sometimes feels despairing
Because it seems so difficult to find.
The child tries to plant a little everywhere she goes
That special love of the Mr Harding kind.
…….Someday when I’m older maybe I shall find
That I’ve grown into a gardener of the Mr Harding kind.”
