big, but clothes bought while the intended children aren’t (have never been) there. We were small for our age. But these are new clothes for a new life in our new home with our new family.
Lilian and Dudley married in their forties. They met when she nursed his dying father. Too old to have children, they at first looked to adopt a baby girl but were denied, perhaps because of age. It was a loss Lilian would always feel. She wanted someone all her own, someone she could mould and make, who would wear dresses. There was somehow always a sadness we couldn’t assuage.
Meanwhile, the Drabbles offered respite to ‘damaged’ children at their picture-postcard post office on Dartmoor. Christopher and I spent a weekend there, shooting bows and arrows, learning to say please and thank you (we were ‘guttural’ Dudley would later delight in telling me).
Plymouth children’s homes were feral then. Snarling packs sniffing out fears, tears, blood. Not always only the boys.
We learned a lesson about caste here. First, of course, there were the Brahmins: the ‘Famous Five’ families with their normal ‘mum and dad’ (small words still able, occasionally, to conjure black holes of unhappiness).
The adopted were the ‘chosen ones’, mostly children of the over-fertile underclass taken in by the infertile middle class. The unworthy become worthy, if you will; a shift in status almost impossible to imagine – a parole from purgatory.
Foster families were holding pens – a sifting, shifting, near-family life spent waiting. Here we would practise being appreciative and loving, living under the fear or hope or threat of the knock on the door. A dread visit from the social worker, who might pass you along, around or back.
At the bottom, of course, the untouchable unlovables. The broken kids in care with the mark of Cain, the ones no one wants. My brother Christopher.
Residential care operated like dogs’ homes – abandoned pets kept penned until someone, anyone, might take them. I remember days my hair was specially brushed. I was told to smile, because new parents might see me, heal me, love me, take me off the city’s hands. There is a skill, you see, to being lovable: a fluffy, undamaged Disney dog, eager to engage, with a wagging tail. Christopher couldn’t or wouldn’t learn. People were nervous of his nervous tic. His face twitched, his mouth twisted. He was stunted. The runt of the litter with perhaps a subtle hint of trouble to come. Though appearances can be deceptive.
I was rehomed but would keen for Christopher until they returned me to the pack, just another ungrateful, undeserving boy. Until the days of Lilian and Dudley Drabble, their house on a Devon river, a kitten, a cat and a magic packet of nasturtium seed.
I grow it still, this unruly, gaudy flower. It is prone to infestation, the first to fall over in the frost, but my gardening is saturated in emotional memories, as with music and love. So I sow nasturtiums because they are tangled up like bindweed with thoughts of the boy I was, the boy I became, the brother I lost, perhaps the father I’ll never know. And I sow runner beans for Mary because Don, her late husband, grew them. Mary also offered me a home, a place to grow when I didn’t have one. So we talk about peas and radishes, about the rocket and lettuce I will sow when she starts treatment.
Later in the week, I meet with Howard to stir biodynamic cow manure by hand in water for an hour. From the beginning of working the allotment we chose to work this way, inspired by Jane Scotter of Fern Verrow farm in Herefordshire, the finest grower we know. In most areas of my life I carefully calculate risk and reward, working within tight budgets and remits. Here, it is different; organic plants grow, foxes are free, flowers spread, children run around. As an adolescent I was banned from confirmation class for being unable to buy into the church, the resurrection and miracles but I have since learned to suspend my disbelief. A journalist, I stop asking questions and try to listen. We follow a lunar planting calendar and avoid invasive pest control. We believe our crops last longer, taste better – the rocket is hotter, the beetroot sweeter, the sorrel more sour. It works for us. We feel more connected to the soil. It suits us and the space.
There is something deeply meditative about the stirring process, encouraging you to focus, to sit still for an hour at dusk or dawn, whatever the weather. Howard has to leave early, so I also spray the mix around Mary’s plot.
The next morning I am at the allotment early to sow rows for Mary and me. I am keen to catch up. I was exiled from the plot with a fractured ankle for four months over the winter. There was a disconnect from the soil with which my wellbeing is intricately entwined. Suddenly, catastrophically, walking and gardening, the twin chemical-free medications I have built into my life, were shattered along with my bones. I am rebuilding this connection now, but it is slow. I am back walking along the canal to work, over the heath or along beaches, but I have missed the overwinter planting that greens the brown soil that surrounds us. I have a thought the plot is sulking, like a cat or child that has been left alone too long. The three bean structures I have built on the two plots are prone to attack. The urge for organic slug pellets is strong.
Later, an allotment neighbour comes to talk over bad news. William, the kindly chairman of the association, has been found dead in his flat. I have always been grateful to him for the gentle way he defused tension between the plot holders and the helpers. William had been forced to leave his native South Africa when his student activism had come to the attention of the Afrikaans authorities. In London, he had written and directed successful plays, he had been a book reviewer, pictures showed he had been beautiful, but the William I knew was a shy, bespectacled man who grew tulips and peonies, and at whose plot I always stopped to talk about gardening, the weather and the problems with sharing sheds.
The slugs may be winning their battle with the climbing beans. The early salads have bolted. The garlic and shallots that had looked green and healthy only a few days ago have succumbed to papery rust and need to be pulled. The wild Tuscan calendula has spread like duckweed and is smothering other plants. For my first time in June, the plot is in need of a reboot. The living carpet that normally covers the soil is threadbare and worn. A couple of weeks before midsummer I start again. It is hard sometimes not to think that your garden says something about you, the green fingers you hope you have, your innate ability (or inability) to nurture. Hard not to feel good about yourself when the plot thrives, or like a failure when it falls. The fault must be yours and not the seed, the weather or blight on the site.
Without early success at growing as a kid, I guess, I might not be doing it now. It was the first time as a child I thought I might be gifted at something. In south Devon, Dudley gave Christopher and me two pocket-sized patches of garden and two packets of seed. Christopher had African marigolds (tagetes): bright orange, cheery, the stuff of temple garlands. I was handed nasturtium flowers: chaotic cascades of reds, oranges and yellows (Dad liked bright colours), which soon overflowed. Caper-shaped seed heads would dry in the sun. I was amazed (still am) that so much life can come from a small packet. Later my nasturtiums would fall prey to black fly, a nightmare infestation sucking sugary life. Lilian showed me how to spray leaves and stems with soapy water, holding back the devastation until frost would turn their green into limp, ghostly grey; a silvery sheen of dew signalling the end. I would pull them, shake out seed for next year (though the self-seeding was always enough) and throw the lifeless bodies on the compost pile to rot down and turn into soil. This idea of nature’s renewal fascinated me. I was in love.
For the first few years at the allotment I helped with a primary school’s gardening club, where children from five to 11 learned to grow. Kids who might be having trouble settling in class worked together during Friday lunchtimes. Seedlings grown in the greenhouse were replanted in raised beds in the playground. I would host their visits to the site. Branch Hill, where we are, is like a Victorian secret garden: gated, only just domesticated, sheltered by tall trees. We would give the children sunflower seeds and watch them stand, stunned, as the plants grew faster than them. We would eat peas from the pod and taste herbs. One memory sticks: watching
