Desert Island Discs, Radio 4
Dead Ringers, Radio 4
Carol Klein, garden and plantswoman – the woman from Gardeners’ World – is likeable because she’s so down-to-earth in every sense.
A strong Lancashire lass who never lost her accent; hers is a no-nonsense approach coupled with the resilience of a very hardy plant.
My own mother shared Carol’s philosophy of how gardening soothes the soul – how having your hands in the soil lifts the way you feel about everything.
There was plenty of laughter in this episode of Desert Island Discs.
You don’t have to dig too deep (apologies for the gardening puns) to discover that life was not all easy for Carol, who never really set out to be a professional gardener.
The story begins with parents, whom she adored, and a mother who was happy to let her haul in a bucket of earth from the garden, dump the soil on the kitchen lino and get on with making her garden.
She was a bright girl who won a scholarship to a good school only to be told at the end of her first year that the catchment area had changed and she no longer had the entitlement.
She believes they found out her father had been in prison for a year.
There’s the story of tearing her new school blazer on her first day out in it, when she climbed iron railings to go see some Great Crested Grebes.
There’s the story of snowdrops arriving in a parcel, of gathering bluebells, of her beloved garden at Glebe Cottage, grown from scratch. When she got it, there was nothing… just a space to turn a car around.
She never had a grand vision and she doesn’t believe in green fingers. It’s very reassuring to hear that you haven’t murdered everything (I have) – it’s just a matter of the wrong location for a plant.
There is a wonderful story about sharing a bath with John Lennon… true but it’s not quite how it sounds.
You’re guaranteed fun and laughter as well as music from Bob Dylan and Nina Simone.
Dead Ringers is dead funny – it’s a skit on the week’s news with dead ringers for Keir Starmer, Evan Davis, Lys Doucet, Liz Truss and Donald J, from the Salt Path furore to the Hokey Cokey Accord. Excellent!