We Brits are a green-fingered lot with apparently one-third
of the nation spending some time each week gardening and forking out £1.5
billion a year on plants. No wonder that over 2 million of us catch Gardeners' World and over 1 million tune
into Gardeners' Question Time.
This week Gardeners' Question Time celebrates its 70th anniversary. I'll track its history
shortly, but first a look at the programmes that sowed the seeds for GQT.
Gardening was the subject of talk programmes in the early
days of broadcasting with members of the RHS invited to give a Chat on Gardening. And it was this
pastime that created one of radio's first stars in the unlikely form of Cecil
Henry Middleton, who eventually came to be known to listeners as 'Mr Middleton'. He first gave talks on the BBC
National Programme in 1931 under the title The
Week in the Garden and by 1934 he'd become the Corporation's first
gardening correspondent with his weekly In
Your Garden. He was also TV's first gardener and tended the plot at Ally
Pally.
Mr Middleton's advice was of the much needed practical kind.
"As a gardener he believed in gradualness and development, and he most of
all disliked people with capricious ideas and importunate designs." In the
era of tightly scripted progamming he was given some latitude by his BBC
producers. One memo insisted: "There really is no need for you to submit a
manuscript every time you talk, so long as you have sufficient notes and you
can extemporise - I would be happy if you would endeavour to tell and not read
your garden talks." A typical talk might have gone something like this:
"Good afternoon, Well it's not much of a day for gardening is it? You
know, we hear a lot of so-called witty remarks about the poor old humble
cabbage. But how we should miss it if we hadn't go it."
Mr Middleton was a key figure in the wartime Dig for Victory campaign, wrote a number
of books and had a regular column in the Daily
Express. His influence would have extended beyond the war had he not died
suddenly in September 1945, the Times
obituary noting that his name was a "household word".
Despite the death of Mr Middleton In Your Garden continued to inform listeners about their allotments
and herbaceous borders for another five years with various presenters that
included Roy Hay, Fred Streeter and Eric Hobbis.
Although now largely overlooked horticultural journalist Roy
Hay enjoyed a lengthy broadcasting career. When In Your Garden ended in 1950 he became the main presenter of its
Sunday afternoon replacement Home Grown that was heard on the London Home Service and
some other regions. Home Grown ran until 1957 by which time Gardeners' Question Time was heard nationally. In 1957 the BBC
resurrected the In Your Garden title
for a weekly magazine show that Roy presented firstly on Network Three (as part
of their lifestyle and learning slot sandwiched between the Music Programme and
the Third Programme) until 1964 when it transferred to the Home Service
(1964-67) and then Radio 4 (1967-1970). It was only finally dropped in March
1970 by network controller Tony Whitby following the Broadcasting in the Seventies schedule shake-up as he only had room
for one gardening programme. In Your
Garden was regarded as the more "serious professional affair" but
its audience was only 200,000 as against GQT's
one million or so.
As the Home Service regions enjoyed a degree of autonomy in
the 1940s and 1950s not all of the UK heard In
Your Garden and Home Grown.
Listeners in Scotland, for example, would for many years tune into The Scottish Garden as their regional
alternative. But it was the North of England (and for a while by default, due
to transmitter restrictions, Northern
Ireland) that first heard British radio's longest running gardening show. How Does Your Garden Grow? was the brainwave of
Manchester-based talks producer Robert Stead. The first show was broadcast in
the North on 9 April 1947 and had been recorded before members of the Smallshaw
Allotment Association in Ashton-under-Lyme. Robert chaired the series that, for
that first edition, included two gardeners who would become long-standing
experts: local lad Bill Sowerbutts (always billed as "... of
Ashton-under-Lyme) and Fred Loads ("of Burnley", later "of
Lancaster") alongside Tom Clark and Dr E.W. Sansome. The first question
was put by the chairman of the association, Mr Hopwood - about the merits of
double digging in an area with wet soil - and the second by his wife. Apparently
an 81-year old man in the audience was under the impression he was at a
recording of Have A Go and insisted
on playing the cornet.
This is the first edition of How Does Your
Garden Grow?
How Does Your Garden
Grow? eventually became Gardeners'
Question Time in 1951 and continued in the North only until 1957 visiting a
different village hall or meeting room each week. Joining the panel in 1950 was
Professor Alan Gemmell ("of Keele University") and together with
Sowerbutts and Loads they became the mainstay of gardening advice for the next
three decades. "All three men loved to banter, to try to out-persuade the
audience with their recommendations for what to do with unresponsive
aspidistras or rampant Russian vines".
The GQT panel 24 October 1958 |
The triumvirate of Sowerbutts, Loads and Gemmell hardly missed an episode but producers occasionally co-opted other panel members such as vegetable-grower supreme Arthur Billitt (Gardener's World cameras would later visit him at Clack's Farm, Worcestershire in the 70s), Eric Hobbis from the University of Bristol, Cornishman Fred Shepherd and Tom Matheson.
In 1957 GQT made
the transition to national coverage, firstly appearing on the Light Programme
over the summer as Down the Garden Path
and then from September taking root in its now traditional 2pm Sunday slot.
Here's an early 60s example of Gardeners' Question Time (kindly provided by Nigel Deacon) recorded
at the Sanderstead Horticultural Society near Croydon. It's the regular panel
of Loads, Sowerbutts and Gemmell. Of the voices you hear, Simon Elmes (author
of Hello Again-Nine Decades of Radio
Voices) wrote of Bill Sowerbutts that he had "an indelibly rich local
accent and personality to match ... (he) had a swagger to him and his light
voice with its cracking accent was a perfect match for his co-panellist, the
darker and gentler voiced Fred Loads." Gemmell he describes as "a
Scot with a twinkly sense of humour." This edition aired on the BBC Home
Service on 16 December 1962.
There have been ten regular chairs of Gardeners' Question Time:
Robert Stead (1947-1953), Freddie Grisewood (1953-61), Franklin
Engelmann (1961-72), producer Ken Ford who took over the presenting role
following the sudden death of Engelmann (1972 and then again 1977-84), Michael
(Nationwide) Barrett (1972-77), Les
Cottingham (1984-85), Clay Jones (1985-1993), Dr Stefan Buczacki (1993-94),
Eric Robson (1994- ) and Peter Gibbs (2005- ).
Others who briefly filled in were Rex Alston, Steve Race Gill Pyrah and
Anna Ford.
Loads, Sowerbutts and Gemmell as featured in the Radio Times 4 March 1972 (Scan provided by Greg Bakun) |
The panel always attempted to inject some humour into the proceedings but this didn't always go down well with management who seemed a little po-faced about the programme. A 1971 Review Board complained that the cast never varied and often dispensed inaccurate information. "When their inaccuracies become apparent even to themselves they fell back on music-hall jokes." David Hatch, then Network Editor in Manchester, described them as "a very elderly trio" and "a rather self-satisfied team". In the event nature took its course when Fred Loads died, aged 78, in 1981. With the team atmosphere at recordings having gone Alan Gemmell retired in 1982 (he died in 1986) and then Bill Sowerbutts left in 1983 (he died in 1990).
From 1 April 1979 comes this this edition of GQT with the old regulars of Loads, Sowerbutts and Gemmell. Ken Ford chairs proceedings and they are guests of the Norton Cuckney and District Village Produce Association in Nottinghamshire.
By the late 70s other experts came on board, blunt
Yorkshireman Geoffrey Smith, Welsh vegetable expert Clay Jones and, briefly,
horticultural writer Chris Brickell. Then from 1982 the programme was given a
bit of a shake-up with its first regular female expert Daphne Ledward who'd
previously dispensed tips on BBC Radio Lincolnshire. Also joining to become a
regular member were Dr Stefan Buczacki. and TV's Peter Seabrook, already a
familiar face on Gardeners' World and
Pebble Mill at One.
Other gardening experts appearing on the programme in the
80s, 90s and 00s include: Sid Robertson, Fred Downham, Bridget Moody, Sue
Phillips, Adrienne Wild, Walter Gilmour, Don Cockman, Bob Flowerdew, Pippa
Greenwood, Geoff Hamilton, John Stirland, Crosbie Cochrane, Henry Noblett, Anne
Swithinbank, Chris Beardshaw, John Cushnie, Matthew Biggs, Carol Klein, Bunny
Guinness, Nigel Colborn, Roy Lancaster, Tony Russell, Carole Baxter, Matthew
Wilson and Christine Walkden.
The panel for the 40th anniversary broadcast |
For this 40th anniversary special in April 1987 the team visited the Old Palace, Hatfield in Hertfordshire where the horticultural questions come from some surprisingly familiar names. There's Germaine Greer (who used to write a gardening column as 'Rose Blight'), Molly Weir, John Humphries, Mary Whitehouse, Johnny Morris, Julian Pettifer, Penelope Mortimer, Penelope Keith and Richard Briers.
The panel are Daphne Ledward, Geoffrey Smith (who we still
refer to as the 'mad axe man' as on Gardeners'
World he always seemed to be advocating vigorous pruning of any shrub or
tree), Fred Downham and Dr Stefan Buczacki.
In 1994 there was trouble in the GQT garden, and it wasn't a
case of powdery mildew or box blight but the threat of outsourcing. Radio 4 had
decided that two programme, the other was Feedback,
should be independently produced. Trevor Taylor, with Taylor Made Productions,
won the contract. Trevor had previously worked as a BBC news reporter and
producer on local radio and Radio 4 before setting up his company in 1985. However
there was mutiny in the air as the existing team of Stefan Buczacki, Daphne
Ledward, Fred Downham, Sue Phillips and Bridget Moody failed to secure
guarantees of continuing to appear on the programme. They all left the BBC and
shifted across to Classic FM for an hour-long show titled Classic Gardening Forum with the question and answer sequences "blended
with popular classical music to fit themes such as flowers, fruit and the
regions from where the programmes are broadcast". Classic FM's version was
relatively short-lived, being finally put out to grass in September 1997.
Classic FM's alternative 2 April 1994 |
Listeners needn't have worried, the new chairman was Eric
Robson, already known to the Radio 4 audience from File on 4, with some new experts joining the panel including Anne
Swithinbank, Pippa Greenwood and Bob Flowerdew; all, at the time, familiar to
viewers of Gardeners' World and all
still with the programme 23 years later.
Since that upset things have been relatively quiet in the
garden. In December 2000 the programme gained an extra 15 minutes on its
running time. In 2005 meteorologist and keen gardener Peter Gibbs joined to
share the chairing duties with Eric Robson. In 2009 producer Trevor Taylor
retired and the contract was awarded to Somethin' Else - the same company
behind Radio 3's Essential Classics
and 5 live's Kermode and Mayo's Film
Review.
The show still plys the highways and byways of the UK to face questions from amateur gardeners but there are also regular correspondence editions, although these are rarely studio-bound. Recent specials have been recorded at 10 Downing Street and Buckingham Palace.
The gradual shift to add some new life to the programme has
not been without its critics, although it's usually former chairman Stefan
Buczkacki who's quoted, bemoaning the fact it "no longer offers any sense
of location or identity."
The basics of GQT,
the dispensing a gardening advice, eventually spread to other radio stations as
the BBC opened its network of local stations, with most offering some form of
gardening programme or feature. Some experts have enjoyed a long tenure, Joe
Maiden on Radio Leeds, who sadly died in 2015, had been with the station for
40+ years whilst Radio Nottingham's John Stirland has also been on-air for a
similar amount of time. Even the early ILR stations dabbled with gardening
spots with Percy Thrower appearing on LBC for instance. GQT's Daphne Ledward ('Daffers') was for many years a regular on
Jimmy Young's Radio 2 show. In a similar vein Jeremy Vine occasionally calls on
Rhondda Valley allotment owner Terry Walton for his tips and advice.
For the programme's 70th anniversary there's a special edition this afternoon on BBC Radio 4 that gets a repeat in the time-honoured
2pm slot on Sunday afternoon. But as this weekend promises to be warm and sunny
you may find yourself out in the garden deadheading those daffodils or tending
your veg plot.
Updated 2 April 2022: In 2019 Eric Robson retired and Kathy Clugston came in to share the presenting role with Peter Gibbs. The 1979 edition has been added above.
1 comment:
Thanks Andy and more power to your hollyhocks! The 1962 episode seems to be only the first half?
Post a Comment