Geoffrey Smith
Posted by Alistair on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009
http://www.aberdeengardening.co.uk/
My interest in gardens and gardening began as a child. My brother and myself would visit and stay over at our grandparents house regularly. We lived on the top floor of a tenement block, making the visits to grandmas house all the more special.
They had a large garden which was beautifully maintained, the days spent there were the best of my childhood.
Moving on a little more than a decade, in nineteen sixty nine Myra and I who incidentally married very young got our first house with a garden. It was a council house with a small garden, moving in with our two children who were still babies was like being given a mansion.
Our gardening interest took off. I was given a huge batch of a weekly publication (Garden news) I would read these most evenings absorbing as much information in the knowledge that this would become for the both of us a lifetime pasion. Gradually I found whilst opening the garden news the first pages I would turn to was Geoffrey Smiths garden diary.
Sadly Geoffrey died last week. Not only his gardening knowledge but his way with words made him the most inspirational of all the celebrity gardeners and broadcasters. In fact when he stopped his weekly article in the garden news I could not stop myself contacting the publishers to express my opinion that their paper would not be the same without Geoffrey’s article. The career of this Yorkshire man of course went much further than a newspaper article. He was made a superintendent of the Royal Horticultural Society’s garden at Harlow Carr at the age of 26, and continued to work there for two decades. Geoffrey also presented the BBC Gardeners world and also several series on BBC2. This highly accomplished man will be remembered.
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