I can remember the day that we first met our lazy Gardener’s Lad, Pendle. We had advertised in the horticultural magazines for the post of Gardener’s Lad, a vacancy that had been caused by Stan, the previous Lad, being dismissed for being caught selling cauliflowers and turnips from the gardens in a barrow at the local market. It also later transpired that this Lad had, as well as the veg, flogged off a couple of statues from around the parkland, one of them being the Henry Moore that had been on the lawn in front of the house. We thought it had gone off for a clean but when sorting out his room we found a receipt from Tommy “Fingers” Jones (the local fence for stolen goods). Like Stan the Gardener’s Lad, he too wasn’t the sharpest trowel in the garden, in that “Fingers” issued receipts for those stolen goods. The local constabulary were only too delighted to pay “Fingers” a visit, where they managed to recover the statue and return it to us a few months later only slightly the worse for wear.
There were three candidates for the Gardener’s Lad job, all of varying experience. First was Tom Spearfitt, who had worked at Kew Gardens for a number of years but had gained little experience of dealing with the gentry; next came Richard Ponsonby-Badgeworth, who’d trained on the Frummly Estate in Yorkshire (a lively chap, great at growing rhubarb and liquorish and keeping the bowels at Frummly Manor regular), and then there was this final young lad. I still remember him loping into the room; he was nearly six feet tall, with a head of bright ginger hair that refused to be contained by the rather small cloth cap that sat even more reluctantly, nay precariously, on his tall, thin head. He was ruddy cheeked, and bore what could only be described as a startled but mischievous grin. Lady Crafty-Dog whispered to me that she thought he looked like a well-known brand of long-lasting battery. His name was Pendulous Sedge, and he hailed from the border counties of England and Wales.
His gardening boots were a bit large for his feet, his trousers too short for his legs, and his tweed jacket bulged here and there with what turned out to be pork pies and cheddar and pickle sandwiches his Mum had given him for the train journey here and back. Pendle’s father had been gardener at one of the vicarages near Shrewsbury and then in Worcester before running off to sea and leaving his Mum and his six siblings. In spite of this, he had been studying horticulture at evening class and getting practical experience working in local gardens, for what little he could to supplement the family purse. His young brothers and sisters were also in service in local houses but Pendle wanted to go further afield.
He said that he had read about Crafty Dog Towers and the Gardens in an article in the Countryman & Fisherman’s Compendium, and that he liked the look of the parterres and walled garden in the photos. He had especially liked the Head Gardener’s ideas for the redevelopment of the former cabbage and broccoli beds. Grout (who was on the interview panel, naturally) was quite taken with this, and they bounced a few ideas across the table to each other, like a sort of horticultural table-tennis. We knew from that moment that this long thin streak of gardening staff was the right person for us. Lady Penelope especially liked him, and of course her view counted most of all.
As Lady Crafty-Dog and I called the other two candidates into the drawing room to break them the bad news (and give them a shilling each towards their train journeys home), Grout took young Pendle literally under his arm (or as far as he could reach) to show him round his future work area. Pendle used the telephone in the drawing room to ring the public house near his Mum to ask whether they could let her know that he had got the job and was going to stay. We kitted him out with spare pyjamas and night cap etc. so that he could stay that evening with Mr and Mrs Grout in the Gardener’s Cottage until we could sort out some accommodation with the house staff here at the Towers. There was Stan’s old room which we were in the middle of rewiring as the chandelier, light fittings, bulbs, sockets and copper cable had seemed to have inexplicably disappeared. And the inside door handle. And the paper off one wall.
To be honest, having Pendle stay at the Gardener’s cottage was a good thing, as Mrs Grout now had someone to fuss about and molly-coddle. We’d never appreciated how much she missed her two sons who were now working abroad, and only came home once or twice a year. She seemed to have had twenty years wiped off her, she looked so hale and happy.
Grout came to see me at the end of Pendle’s first week and asked whether the arrangement could be made permanent, his reason being that staying at the cottage meant that Pendle was closer to his place of work but as he spoke we both knew what he really meant. As it was, we couldn’t get a decent new light fitting for Stan’s room, and as for sourcing a Grindling Gibbons hand-carved and gilded doorhandle, the less said the better.
Grout and I’d talked a lot about his wife’s health and the noted improvement in her demeanour as we drove to the wayside halt on the branch line just beyond Crafty Dog Towers where the South Wales Railway company would drop off any goods destined for us. There we collected Pendle’s heavy metal trunk, full of his belongings from his former home. I must say, the young lad did have a tear in his eye as he opened the crate when we got it back to the cottage. I thought it might have been a touch of melancholic nostalgia, though Lady Penelope said that it was most likely due to the rather large number of industrial-size moth-balls lurking in the clothes inside!
Pendle, the Gardener’s Lad, and Mr Grout, the Head Gardener, hit it off from the very start. I walked down to the walled gardens a few weeks after he had started and was surprised to see a sign on the potting shed door saying “Do Not Disturb – Staff Meeting”. I knocked on the door, and coughed politely, before going inside. There’d been a frantic scraping of chairs on the flagstone floor, and the sound of rustling papers and drawers being shut as I opened the green wooden door that led into the old potting shed.
One side of the desk sat Grout, facing the door, with Pendle facing him, his back to me. They both smiled sheepishly, like two naughty schoolboys who’d been caught out. I knew that Grout was up to one of his plans, and I later realised that Pendle was just as canny. On the blackboard there was a chalk drawing of what looked like a plate of spilt spaghetti. I could make out the word “furnace”. Pendle turned a bit pink as he stammered that this was a design for a new heating system for the greenhouses. Grout took over, explaining that this was indeed a prototype for new heating system for the greenhouses, which was to be trialled on a small scale for greenhouse 1 and the small potting shed behind the one we were in now. It would not only keep the staff quarters and greenhouse warm but would help extend the growing season for pineapples, the lemon and orange trees and maybe even a banana palm or two. I told them I thought this was a capital idea, and asked what resources they might need.
Pendle and Grout looked at each other, then Grout scribbled some things down on a sheet of paper from his desk and passed it to me. I was puzzled at first by the seemingly vast amount of copper pipe and various joints, as well as the large copper boiler and water tank he wanted. “Oh yes,” Pendle assured me, “We’ll need a good sized water tank for the still.”
I didn’t quite catch what he said. “Still? Still what?”
Grout looked furtively at Pendle (or rather, I thought he did) and said, “He means we still need a water tank.”
I nodded, “Ah yes, of course, you still need a water tank for the heating water. Of course.” I knew a bit about central heating. It wouldn’t work without a reserve tank of water – I’m not stupid, you know.
Grout smiled, “He’s a sharp lad, young Pendle!”
I had to agree. They showed me the plans in more detail and, well, to be honest, they were all Greek to me. Reservoir tank, cooling water, heating boiler, condenser and the collection tank. I queried why there was a collection tank.
“Ah, that’s an emergency tank to collect any dripping water in case of leaks.” Pendle pointed to where there was a tap and bottle drawn on the diagram. “We can collect any drips and….put them back in so nothing is wasted.” “We can run it on old vegetable waste, such as beetroot, and herbs and such like. It doesn’t smell as bad as normal smoke and steam, it’s more like a garden pot-pourri,” the Head Gardener was very excited about the idea. Not being one to stifle their enthusiasm and desire to set up this new heating plant which I was told would be of massive benefit to the gardens I just bade them a good day and went off to order the various pieces of pipework and ironmongery for them. They were going to make such a great team – I could tell.