Dilys Paes

Dad and his Garden

During the war, people used to try to grow as much food as they could because everything was rationed. The men at the factories used to exchange vegetables. Somebody would bring carrots and exchange for potatoes. There used to be a little bit of competition about tomatoes and, this particular day, Mr Evans had produced some enormous tomatoes with big shiny skin. He wasn't prepared to exchange them but he would sell them, so Dad bought two of these tomatoes. Always when he got home from work, Mum would have a good meal for him and she would give him some of her ration. She said, “Well I've got some bacon here and I've got an egg. I’ll do some fried tomatoes as well”. Once she had cooked them, she said to Dad, “You know these tomatoes aren’t very good. They seem to be quite hollow”. Dad said, ‘Well they really must be good because this chap knows how to grow his own food”. This man did sell his big tomatoes for a few days and then people started complaining they were getting tummy upsets and no one knew why until they realised they were eating Mr Evans’ tomatoes. On questioning, they discovered that Mr Evans has been feeding his tomato plants with solution of Epsom salts, and of course Epsom salts have a pretty vigorous effect on the digestive system, so I don't think he sold so very many after that!

One man knowing, Dad's love of the garden, gave him a plant. “I don't want it, Howell”, he said. “I've got one already so maybe you might like to grow it”. It needed looking after in the garden, so Dad planted it in the garden and he did look after it. He gave it plenty of this dry fertiliser food and it grew and grew beautiful leaves over 18 inches to 2 feet in height, big, shiny green leaves. At this time, Mum's sister, Auntie Mary, and her husband Uncle Jim came up to spend a short holiday with us. Uncle Jim was a keen gardener too. Dad proudly took him into the garden to show him his rare plant so Uncle Jim looked at it and he said “What is it Howell?” Dad said, “Nobody seems to know the name of this rare plant”. Uncle Jim said, “Well, to me, these look like turnip leaves”. Dad said, “It couldn’t possibly be”. Uncle Jim was very suspicious. A few days later, Dad decided he had had enough and there was nothing to show to eat, so he dug up the plant and he dug up a turnip the size almost of a football. It was a joke his mates were playing on him.

Dad was quite a serious-minded man. He had a terrible sense of humour and in fact I was about 18 years of age when I really found out Dad did have a sense of humour. My mother of course was quite the opposite. Dad was always concerned about his health and he would take anything for any reason. He had seen an advert in one of the newspapers about these special vitamin tablets or something. He sent away for them and these tablets came and he had to take one a day and he had been taking them for about a week but he didn’t think they were doing any good. Mum had a look at them and said “Have you really read what's on the box? It says “for women only!”. My mother had a sense of humour and I can imagine the things she said. There was a set for men and a set for woman.

Dad was a keen gardener and he was always concerned with his health. There was a thing called thermogene, which was like cotton wool, which was impregnated with some sort of moisture which would affect the cotton wool covering and people used it when they had a bad chest to keep the chest warm and back warm. People with rheumatism would put it around their knees or wherever. This particular winter, Dad had a bad chest around January or February and he had decided to have thermogene so he put it on and Mum had to cut it for him. The instructions were that you should never take the whole thing off in one go.

You had to peel it off layer by layer until there was nothing left to peel off, because suddenly taking it away could have had bad side effects. Now this was early spring and Dad always did everything fully dressed. You never saw my father without a tie or hat, even when he was gardening. He was digging away this particular time and about half an hour later he came staggering into the kitchen, his face puce. “I can't breathe Rachel. I can't breathe”, he said. “I have to take the thermogene off”. Mum was surprised he still had it on. She took it off and his chest was like a piece of raw beef and Mum laughed which didn’t help Dad much as he was in agony. He didn’t do any more gardening for the rest of the day. My mother had to keep putting on cool compresses on his chest.

He used to grow tall lupins and sent away for the seeds and you couldn’t pick them to put in a vase, but they made a beautiful sight in the garden. He was always in his garden when he came home from work. He wouldn't sit down for a meal or anything, he would go straight into the garden and he was always concerned about the cabbage white butterfly. We were sitting around the table for Sunday lunch, Selwyn was beginning to talk and walk around on his own and he suddenly came out with, “I'm going to kill those bloody lies on Daddy's cabbages”. Mum looked at me, but I said I never said anything. I don’t swear. Selwyn was trying to say butterflies, not bloody lies! Selwyn came in one day with all the lupin heads in a box for Dad. He had seen us picking beans and thought this would be a nice surprise. Dad was not best pleased.

After the war, Dad didn’t grow many vegetables and always wanted to have a rose garden and use to draw plans for one and would buy all sorts of magazines with ideas in. I've still got a book with Dad’s tips on gardening and cuttings from magazines, and he did get his roses at the top of the garden. He planted them and they were very sweet-smelling roses, absolutely lovely.

I used to cut the garden hedge to help and because we were on the corner, we didn’t just have a front hedge but one that went all around the side. We had one of them right along, dividing the corner house from ours and used to get paid to cut it and I would pay Selwyn 6 pence to help me. I didn't mind the cutting, it was clearing up the leaves after you that was harder, so I used to go halves with what Dad paid me.