My memories of Stanmer

Just over 50 years ago, in July 1971, I moved into the Stanmer Village. I’d just got married and we’d been offered a tenancy on the upper of the two Alms Houses that sit on the right-hand side about halfway up.

I’d already been working in the Nursery for almost 3 years, having completed my apprenticeship there, and the opportunity of a house in the village despite its single bedroom and tiny proportion was an opportunity too good to miss.

I was a member of what was called the shrub gang, and as the name suggests, our job was to produce all the trees and shrubs used by the Council in its many parks and gardens and grow material for the numerous landscaping schemes which at that time the Council also undertook.

We were a small team by the standards of the day. Our foreman was Stan Tingley who as a youngster had lived in the house I now occupied. Danny O’Shaughnessy was the propagator and Stan’s number two while I and Chris Cutler completed the set up. There were always a couple of apprentices attached to us too and they would stay for 6 to 9 months as part of their training.

One of the big jobs we did each year was to produce about 2000 new roses. These were all propagated by ‘budding’ which is a process of inserting a single rosebud into a T shaped cut in the base of a stock plant and allowing it grow from there.

On one occasion the BBC came down to film us doing this budding as part of a Schools Programme on careers for school leavers.

If my memory serves me right this was a probably a couple of years before, when I was still living at home in Patcham.

The film crew were with us for a several hours and interviewed Stan as part of the piece, but it was probably 4 months later that we heard the programme was being broadcast.

This was a time before video recorders, let alone digital catch up so you either saw programmes live or you missed them. School’s programmes always came out during the day, so we were given special dispensation to watch the broadcast in Jack Smith, the deputy manager’s house which was right next to the potting shed.

I think our bit was only about 60 seconds long, but it was really exciting to see myself on TV. Watching it again wasn’t even a consideration but unbeknown to me, my Mum had been prepared and ready back home with her camera.

So this photo is of me on the Telly circa 1969. I’m the one with all the hair, bending down tying in the buds with Stan standing up ready to put the next bud in. Sadly, I can’t now remember who the young apprentice was with the hoe.

I’ve very few claims to fame but one is that I was a TV gardener years and years before Allan Titchmarsh and I’ve still got the photo to prove it.