He had the proverbial green fingers.
Wallflowers
My Father didn’t value objects or things as such. What he valued apart from the family was his greenhouse. He was a gardener by trade and had a love of nature which never left him in all his 93 years. He had the proverbial green fingers.
It was only a small greenhouse. But it was amazing how many varieties of plants and flowers it could accommodate. He had built it himself many years ago, and whenever we moved house it was dismantled, taken with us and put together as soon as possible when we arrived at our new location. When he wasn’t at his day job in one of Newcastle’s many parks he could always be found in his greenhouse.
Now this little greenhouse had many perfumes and tastes; I won’t call them smells or scents. They were definitely perfumes which can only be produced by nature. At one end of the greenhouse were the traditional salad ingredients which could be gathered whenever we needed them. The taste was delicious.
There were always flowers at the other end. The perfume coming from those flowers is not easy to describe. Heady to say the least, and those perfumes were transferred to the rest of the garden as the flowers were planted out in their respective seasons. To wake up in the morning to the perfume of Wallflowers and Virginia Stock wafting up from the garden has to be experienced. It could never be adequately described, and all this beauty came from that greenhouse a pair of gentle hands and a few packets of seeds from Woolworths.
My Father was a quiet man with a quiet sense of humour. A good Christian. A man to whom my brothers and myself could talk to about anything and receive sound advice. That good advice has served us well over the years and still does.
Kitty Brightwell
Shiremoor Scribblers