I have a particularly fond memory of Clarissa Dickson Wright, who died on 15 March. I was at one of those peculiar gatherings that constituted a BBC programme launch party when I was spotted across a crowded room by Clarissa and Jennifer Paterson, who were there to celebrate what was, I think, the last series of Two Fat Ladies. They bore down on me from two sides until I was pinned against a wall (and I do mean pinned; the ladies were not called fat for nothing) and Clarissa, who was well known for loathing carrots, demanded in a stentorian voice: “Now what do you think of cardoons?” I said they were constantly on my mind.
It wasn’t the sort of thing you forget in a hurry, not least because I am especially fond of cardoons and think them among the lost treasures of the English kitchen. They are relatives of the globe artichoke but you eat the leaf stalk not the flower. The only problem is that, like the wonderful Clarissa and Jennifer, they do take up a lot of room.
Premier hearts of oak
A tradition has grown up that serving prime ministers plant a tree at Chequers to mark their term of office. Some seem to do it while still in post, others as they depart. I had the interesting experience a little while ago of visiting the Chequers garden and was intrigued to see who had planted what; and then tried to fathom why.
Margaret Thatcher planted a lime, Tony Blair a field maple, Ramsay MacDonald a cedar and Neville Chamberlain a tulip tree. No, I couldn’t see the connection, either. John Major planted a native oak, although I’m unsure which species. No matter, it is the embodiment of our national strength, something you might have expected of Churchill. In fact, Churchill did plant an oak, but not an English oak. For some bizarre reason and presumably at the suggestion of some civil servant whose knowledge of biogeography was no more sensitive than his knowledge of history, I discovered that in 1955 he planted on the east lawn a specimen of Quercus ithaburensis macrolepis, the valonia oak. And where does the valonia originate? It just happens to be one of the most characteristic forest trees of Gallipoli and the area around the Dardanelles. Someone has much to answer for.
Sweet spring
There is a problem with apricots. The problem arises because, like most of my generation, I grew up believing they always came in tins. And, so the logic went, anything that comes in a tin is unlikely to grow in a British garden. Yet how wrong a perception this is, because apricots are in truth much more hardy than their close relatives peaches; and even more importantly they are not affected by the scourge of leaf curl disease.
We have had an apricot tree in our garden for years and, believe me, you can gain no greater culinary Brownie point than serving your guests an apricot flan made from home-grown fruit. To be fair, the flowers can be clobbered by a late frost but we still pick a good crop three years in five; and, having just finished the last of the frozen flans from 2013, I am watching anxiously in the hope that this year’s bounteous blossom makes it to full maturity. Apricots are probably best grown against the shelter of a warm wall but can be successful free-standing. Moorpark is still, to my mind, the best variety.
A quietly lustful life
Hands up, anyone who knows anything about or has even heard of Harcourt “Crinks” Johnstone. I do not expect much response because he is the lost Liberal, in neither the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography nor the Dictionary of Liberal Biography and with only the most fleeting entry in Who Was Who. Yet after the party leader Archie Sinclair, Crinks was probably the most prominent Liberal in Churchill’s wartime government. Jo Grimond recalled attending as a young man a hare shoot on Sinclair’s Highland estate where Crinks was another guest: “My most notable memory . . . was of a vast and puffing gentleman heaving into sight . . .” he wrote. And Crinks heaved his way through life, overweight, wealthy, genial, extraordinarily generous and passionately Asquithian – he kept a picture of him by his bed. Sexually he was a non-combatant and once told Margot Asquith he had no use for women, adding that he had loved one man in his life and hated another: Asquith the first and Lloyd George the second. At the start of the war, Churchill dragged him from his wilderness of indolence and good living outside parliament to be secretary for overseas trade. But after his death in 1945 “Crinks” simply slipped from history. Does he have a counterpart today?
Ramblers will have a blast
It wasn’t exactly the one that flew over the cuckoo’s nest but it certainly flew over a great many other nests and at least one Wiltshire village last week before returning to earth and leaving a six-foot-wide crater. “It” was the misfired shell, for which someone will have to answer, blasted by an artillery piece some five miles beyond bounds on an army firing range on Salisbury Plain.
But the episode did serve as a reminder of what biodiversity treasures the Ministry of Defence has in its care, and in that respect the instruction for us to “keep out” has preserved not only countless creatures and their nests but some exceptional landscape, too. I can remember the revelation some years ago, seeing for the first time stretches of beautiful Dorset coast such as Worbarrow Bay that had eluded me, having been closed on each previous occasion I’d stayed in the area. But I wonder what impact the present military stringencies will have. Will it mean more access for the public, as ranges are closed and troops not available to man them; or will it bring an increased use of home facilities because overseas ranges are too costly to maintain and visit?
Stefan Buczacki is a biologist and biographer and a former chairman of “Gardeners’ Question Time”. An updated edition of his “Pests, Diseases and Disorders of Garden Plants”, co-written with Keith Harris, will be published by Collins in June
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