We have less than 24 hours to go until ‘Garden Tales’ is officially launched with tea and cakes in the garden at Fanshawe Gate. It’s hard to believe that we’ve produced this book from a standing start in less than 6 months, especially as we all have other jobs and responsibilities. For me, Nicola Ball, editing the book has been almost a full-time task since June.
More than 45 people have been interviewed in order to create the book. When I first put the idea to many of them at the Fanshawe Gate helpers’ lunch in early April, I expected some reluctance to appear in a book about the garden. Most are modest and private people, and their initial reaction was often, ‘I’m not interesting enough to write about!’ I didn’t accept that objection: I think that everyone’s lives have something of value and interest in them, often in the everyday details that they take for granted. I love reading about other people’s lives, but find that what often interests me most is what they eat for breakfast. As Juliette’s transcripts of the interviews started to arrive, and I read the description by Barbara Coldwell, one of the kitchen volunteers, of how she sprinkles bee pollen on her Kelloggs in the morning, the project came to life.
Much more followed. Juliette and I had agreed a standard list of questions to ask each person, and the diversity of the responses was fascinating. The challenge has been to try to keep each person’s ‘Garden Tale’ in their own words as far as possible. By and large, people have been prepared to be candid, so some of the pieces are quite funny, and others are very moving.
The month of August was frantic for the whole production team. The final interviews were only completed in the first week, leaving less than 2 weeks for Cynthia to absorb all the ‘Tales’ that had been agreed with their contributors, and for us to reshape her introduction in the light of them. I will never forget her reaction when she read them all for the first time – she was utterly astonished to find out so much about people she had known for many years.
I stayed at Fanshawe Gate, enjoying the beautiful sunrises courtesy of Arry the Cockerel’s loud crowing (more about him in the book!). Days were spent crowded round the computer screens in Grafika’s offices with the designers, Lindy (who designed Cynthia’s first book, ‘A Garden in my Life’) and Chris. At one point it seemed that every single person in the office had been conscripted to work on the book in order to meet the print deadline. Even my 13-year-old daughter, Frances, who appears in the book as one of the kitchen volunteers, found herself doing somewhat underage work experience as Grafika’s receptionist. The highlight of each day was often the arrival of another chocolate cake from Cynthia – it’s going to be hard for other clients to beat that.
What sort of book have we produced? It’s certainly not a conventional gardening book. Few plants or techniques are mentioned (although there are some fabulous photographs). In fact there are detailed planting plans in ‘A Garden in my Life’, which we may now reprint in the hope that people will want to read the ‘back story’. ‘Garden Tales’ is definitely a book that someone who opens their garden to the public (or is thinking of doing so) will want to read – the descriptions of the effort involved are sobering, but the fact that everyone is having such fun must be quite inspiring too.
The book is really about people. It’s not quite a social history – this is not Emmanuel LeRoy Ladurie in 14th century Montaillou, or Studs Terkel in 20th century Chicago – but it’s surprising what themes and patterns do emerge. Some are particular to life in North Derbyshire; others are universal.
On Radio Sheffield this morning, Cynthia likened the book to the Canterbury Tales. The context for ‘Garden Tales’ is not a journey but a garden: a sanctuary and a meeting place where people can come together and exchange their stories. That was the idea that inspired my choice of title. Inevitably, now that the book is printed, I wish that we could have had a few months more to explore all these interesting stories even further. But perhaps it’s good to have left some questions unanswered: there will be some great conversations to look forward to when next year’s garden open season starts.
