Old Herbaceous : a novel of the garden

It's the time of year for reading and dreaming about being out in the gardens that are currently inaccessible. When the sleet flies across my window instead of falling down, I have very little ambition to be outside. This is perfect weather for curling up with a gardening story.

Old Herbaceous is a delightful little story about an English manor gardener who rises through the ranks to become head gardener at the manor and a well-recognized figure in horticultural circles. The time spanned runs from the tail-end of the 19th century through to mid-20th century.

Although the gardener's life span matches that of the author rather closely, we are told that the novel is not autobiographical. Author, Reginald Arkell, grew up on an English farm, trained as a journalist, and worked for many years in the magazine industry. He was recognized for his light-hearted plays and his garden poetry long before he started writing books. Arkell was in his late 70s when Old Herbaceous was published.

Having lived through the late Victorian era, two world wars, and the huge changes before and after those wars, Arkell was well-suited to write an old man's reminiscences of the same time period. The story is written as reminiscences but is not sentimental or heavily introspective. It is a crusty country gardener we're reading about, after all.

Classic in style (but not in length or wordiness), the book has recently been re-issued as part of "The Modern Library gardening series" and I'm glad they did that or I would have missed out. Michael Pollan is the series editor. Penelope Hobhouse has written an introduction with information about the author and his work.

If you're looking for a "gentle read", especially one that does not drag on forever, you might want to give this one a try.

Old Herbaceous : a novel of the garden by Reginald Arkell. This edition published in 2003 by The Modern Library. ISBN: 978-0-8129-6738-0.

No time to wave goodbye

Ben Wicks, beloved cartoonist and journalist, grew up in England. He was from one of the poorer districts of London but did much of his growing up in rural England. Wick and thousands of children like him were evacuated from the city just before England formally entered World War II.

No time to wave goodbye is an assemblage of commentary and letters from former evacuees, collected by Wicks from Britain, New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, and Canada. Some of the correspondents had never told their stories before - not to parents, spouses, descendants, or counsellors. Some were grateful for the evacuation and the way it shaped them as people. Others think it should never have happened. All agreed they would never send their children away.

This was a very difficult time for children, parents, and foster parents and, as a result, the book could have been an emotionally harrowing one to read. Wicks manages to avoid that by filling the text with brief excerpts from many letters. The stories and still poignant and the struggles clear but it's not nearly as overwhelming as an uninterrupted narrative would be. For that I am thankful.

I wanted to know more about the evacuations. I knew there would be both good and bad experiences, but I didn't want to carry the weight of a 70-year-old trauma with me for days afterwards. After all, there was nothing I could do to change it now. This book was exactly the format I was looking for - personal and direct but limited to brief glimpses of the long ordeal.

I'm glad these stories haven't been lost. They don't all have happy endings but some of them do and that's encouraging. It's hard to believe some of what passed as "normal" behaviour then. Unfortunately, I know people haven't changed much since then. That makes me wonder how I would behave under similar pressures. I'm not sure I want to know just yet.

I would recommend this to history buffs, social students, and brave child welfare advocates.

No time to wave goodbye by Ben Wicks. Published in 1988 by Stoddart. ISBN: 0-7737-2215.