Back in early June 2023, we had the unusual experience of accommodating a BBC film crew in our very small Whitstable garden. The long-running BBC television show, Gardener’s World paid us a visit as part of a segment on seaside gardening and inclement weather conditions. Presenter Adam Frost plus camera man, sound man, continuity guy and director, were all crammed between our thin strip’s high hedges and, over the course of two hours, I had to try and say insightful things about gardening on heavy clay in a north-east-facing garden. Whatever I said I had to say it about five times, as the camera man captured my ‘impromptu’ conversation with Adam from different angles (including one taken from the vantage point of the flat-roof of our kitchen).
The episode went out on the BBC in August and it took me a few days to muster the courage to watch it – which I did finally and it was all okay. I had to smile though; so much for saying insightful things about gardening on heavy clay in a north-east-facing garden… at one point I say, ‘We like leaves’ – so profound.
People have joked since that I must be walking about the place with an inflated sense of self-importance; fat chance of that. I was in the local butchers the morning after the programme had aired and the butcher looked me up and down and said, ‘Saw you on the telly last night. You could have ironed your shirt’. A bit later, a woman on the highstreet said, confidingly, ‘You did look very grey on my high-definition television’. I laughed. She was right enough.
I got an email from the BBC yesterday to say they’re showing the Whitstable Gardens segment again, as part of a Gardener’s World compilation episode. It goes out tonight at 8pm on BBC 2, so if you want more foliage-based profundity from a very grey man in an un-ironed shirt, look no further!
Our garden, moments before Adam Frost and the BBC Gardener’s World crew arrived. We do indeed ‘like leaves’!
Red's Kingdom 
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