Huddersfield gardening expert Graham Porter is a volunteer gardener at The Kirkwood hospice after his wife died there … and has helped to turn the grounds completely organic.
Graham lost his wife, Judy, to ovarian cancer in November 2023 after 48 years of marriage.
He was the Huddersfield Examiner’s gardening correspondent for many years and was the main voice on BBC Radio Leeds’ Sunday morning gardening show between 2015 and 2022 when he became ill.
At the beginning of August 2022 he had to go into hospital for a serious operation which involved having his large intestines removed.
And while he was in hospital Judy (pictured below with Graham on their 40th wedding anniversary) broke the news to him that she had stage 4 ovarian cancer and she had to start chemotherapy immediately.
Graham, 75, of Netherton, said: “Judy had the cancer for 15 months and spent her last 10 days on The Kirkwood’s in-patient unit.
“I’d already been donating £20 a month to The Kirkwood as I know how much that can do for the hospice in general.
“After Judy died it brought home to me more about what everyone does with this incredible charity. After she died I thought maybe I ought to give something back to The Kirkwood because they treated my wife like a queen.
“The staff were unbelievable in their care and support of her, let alone the family. When we walked through those Dalton doors it was like walking into your own home.
“It meant that I felt instantly comfortable. Everybody just couldn’t do enough for us and the care we received was amazing.
“I said that after she passed away and I got myself turned around and settled I would join the volunteer gardening team and that’s what I’ve done.
“The Kirkwood gardens are truly fantastic with hundreds of hours a week going into maintaining them.”
Graham has championed organic gardening for more than 40 years. He is part of a team of almost 30 volunteers and, under head gardening volunteer Linda Roberts and his guidance, the gardens have gone completely organic over the last 18 months with no chemicals now used at all.
The team makes its own compost – the leaves are a vital part of that – which is used for potting, seeding and general planting in the hospice grounds.
“We love the work but it’s also very sociable too,” said Graham. “We’re a big group of friends who work hard and have fun together, including days and nights out.”
Graham’s had two previous stints volunteering at The Kirkwood. The first was right back when the hospice started in 1987.
He was teaching horticulture at Huddersfield Technical College and the third year students had to do a design project so they built flower beds and a rockery.
After he was made redundant from the college in 1996 he volunteered in the gardens at The Kirkwood for around a year.
Graham – a fellow and former vice chairman of the Chartered Institute of Horticulture – volunteers at the hospice on Mondays and Thursdays.
He wrote a book called The Yorkshire Organic Gardener which was published in 2018.
Graham received the Royal Horticultural Society Harlow Carr medal for his contribution to horticulture in the north of England and the North of England Horticultural Society medal for services and contributions to the Harrogate Flower Shows over many years.
Graham recalls how he and Judy met when he was teaching at Askham Bryan agricultural college near York in the early 1970s.
“Judy was a cook at the college,” he said. “I didn’t know her at the time but that’s where we met in 1973. I saw this lady on the counter serving the food and one day I asked her out while she was serving me peas with fish and chips.
“In shock, these peas went all over the floor and it became a family joke. We went out for a pub meal somewhere on a date and both came back saying it was nice but we wouldn’t go serious. A year later we were engaged and in 1975 we were married.”
Written by ANDY HIRST who runs his own Yorkshire freelance journalism agency AH! PR (https://ah-pr.com/) specialising in press releases, blogging, website content, copywriting and ghost-writing autobiographies.
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