When I was small my mother had a summer job at the cafe in Kew Gardens and she was allowed to bring me with her as I was perfectly happy sitting in the sunshine with a book. I was interested in insects and one of the gardeners used to sit and chat to me about them. he told me about the ones that grow on leaves and in the ground and I went home and told my dad and made him leave a space in the garden where he put all the swept up leaves which we did with a wide pronged metal rake. He was from a large Irish farming family and his mother had been a very big proponant of allotment gardening especially after going through the famine and losing so many family. We had beans, peas, potatoes, cabbage, onions, tomatoes, carrots and anything new he wanted to try. It fed us and our elderly downstairs neighbours very well but the thing I loved was the number of crawlies and winged beauties I could see and play with. I used to get straw and twigs and construct buildings and ladders and watch things crawl around. When the moths and butterflies developed I knew when they would and had the delight of sitting with my dad sometimes i the dark watching the absolute miracle of life. We had so many species and I loved eerything. My mother however di not and all were banished from the house. My delight in summer ws to see all of the moths and butterflies skipping aorund the frames of beans and peas alighting on the flowers. My dad did not use pesticides because of me so our garden was heaven in a small patch in Kingston upon Thames. When we moved to Bedfont in the 70s he had allotments. My mother di not know the price of potaroes until he died in 1993. Then she nearly fainted in Budgens.
Caroline Carney ● 1069d