Mum and dad both worked full time at a Children's home. Mum as the cook and dad was the gardener so as you can understand I was not allowed in the kitchen so spent almost the first five years in the garden with dad. I guess that's where i developed my love of gardening. The garden was hudge mainly growing fruit and veg but he also kept chickens and rabbits.

After the age of five I of course was at school but would spend all the holidays with dad. Or I played with the children in the home.

At secondary school an English teacher took me under his wing and encouraged to take up gardening as a career. Dad advised me against this as he said “there is no money in gardening” but the alternative would have been a life in a knitwear factory!

So with Mr Adam’s help he got me an apprenticeship with the National Trust for Scotland. I was posted to Inverewe Gardens in the north west of Scotland where I had a great teacher who was head gardener and very knowledgeable. I suddenly discovered that actually I was quite good at gardening and picked up so much from my time there.

He got me a position in RHS Wisley and although I was not a student there I was treated as one and again picked up a lot of knowledge.

Safe to say a great combination of theoretical study and practical gardening enables me to give a selection of talks whatever level of gardening knowledge of your group.