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BIG and LONG!!!!

My emphasis was to be mainly literature.

Bibliophilic Banter

	"ME?   Me write a Bibliophilic Banter?    I don't even know what it means!"
My heart felt a cold clutch of terror.   Another challenge that I'd probably
fail.    "I'm no writer," I continued to protest.   My pleas fell on deaf
ears.   Hard hearted Trish only replied, "You can do it."
	Trish didn't know my secret.    From the age of three, I have been a
compulsive, indeed you could say, closet reader.   At the age of four I
could play a mean hand of poker with the baby pack of cards a favourite
uncle had given me.   I never forgave the teacher who would not let me go
back to pick up a few of the cards that I dropped when we were running to
catch a tram.   I was known to go missing for hours in a friend of my
mother's linen cupboard where old magazines were stowed away.   This was
when I was six or seven and the range of printed material extended from
"Man" to gardening publications.   I must say that most of the important
facts of life were learnt through the medium of literature.
	When did my serious garden reading begin?   During this period of life my
mother and father would go many times to Sir John's and Lady Morris'
wonderful home for Sunday night dinner.
Sir John was Chief Justice of Tasmania and Lady Morris was an intellectual,
an avid reader and a devoted gardener.    "Winmarleigh", a mansion built
circa 1880 had magnificent, vast rooms and these included a magical Library.
Ten foot high walls were covered with built in bookcases, a ladder was used
to reach half of the books.    An Aladdin's Cave to this seven-year old book
addict who had been known to read the writing on a Harpic container in other
peoples' lavatories.    The house was surrounded by many acres of ornamental
gardens and bush.
	Through these Sunday night gatherings, I dined with many famous
personalities of both the legal and arts worlds.   After dinner, the
"grownups" retired to the Library for coffee and the discussions and
arguments continued far into the early hours of the morning.   My mother,
being a Member of Parliament, had strong views on every subject.   As the
conversations raged, I would be put to sleep on a sofa placed in a window
bay on the far side of the room.    The only light came from standard lamps
and the flicker of flames from the open fire.   A blanket was thrown over
me.   I would curl up under the rug and make myself as small as possible.
After a while, when the far ranging conversation was going full speed ahead,
I would drape the rug over myself and creep, like a little ghost, to the
nearest bookcase and grab a book.   It so happened that this bookcase was
crammed full of Lady Morris' gardening books.   Listening to the fascinating
talk, reading under the throw over, I would hope with all my heart that I
would be forgotten - and I usually was.    So it came to be that in those
preteen years, my knowledge of Gertrude Jekell was as extensive as my
contemparies awareness of the doings of "Wanda Girl" or Noddy.
	Most of my life I lived within a garden.   The play areas of my youth were
on the beach and in the large gardens that surrounded the big houses of
Sandy Bay.   Given Tasmania's weather patterns, the garden memories of
childhood pursuits far outnumber the beach scenarios.   Recollections flash
through my mind - the tree houses, really good games of hide and seek and
Garden Fetes to raise money for the fighting troops and where the children
could taste such joys as toffee apples and persuade our parents to buy us
home made toys or, in my case, books from the second hand stall.   I
remember the gang we formed, "The Hedgeclimbers Adventurers".   Points were
awarded according to length of hedge and disposition of the owner.
Detection by the poor owner earned demerits and a sound talking to.    These
tall hedges were mainly Macrocarpa and our mothers were often puzzled on
seeing the rashes that adorned our small bodies at bath time.
	Now I live with one of the few remaining Macrocarpa hedges surrounding my
garden.   As it is extremely long and I would not be too happy to see a
group of little girls climbing along it, it may well have earned the
reputation of  the most challenging, the Gold Medal of all hedges.
Though, on second thoughts, I may react quite kindly, - now our hedge
becomes the target of larrikin arsonists who have set it alight three times.
	Another source that helped appease my addictive desire to read gardening
books was Kitty Henry's library of gardening publications.   [See Journal of
the Australian Garden History Society vol. 8 no.2 1996]  I was introduced to
William Robertson [ I now own Kitty's copy of  "English Flower Garden" 1893
and use it frequently], Edna Walling, Karel Capek [love his down-to-earth
humour], Marion Cran, Cecil Roberts, Margery Fish, Russel Page and The Royal
Horticulture Society's Journals, to mention but a few.   Most of these have
been written about by the other bookaholics but I will write further about
the Beverley Nichol books that I borrowed from Kitty.   From various parts
of the world, I have managed to collect most of his gardening writings.
	Somehow, I forgive the "tweeness" of Beverley Nichols and thoroughly enjoy
his writings.   I like the caustic humour.    My general knowledge has
increases by learning of many things that take place in the garden scene.
For example, did you know that gold fish can survive the winter under the
thick ice that can form on the garden pond in an English garden?   And that
they may change colour and have sex and babies whilst sheltering there?   I
also read of the many pitfalls one encounters when renovating  a country
cottage property, both inside and out, the sufferings one must undertake
when meeting the new neighbours and I read with an ironic smile of the
mistakes we all make in our gardens.    But as I walk "Down the Garden Path"
on a "Garden Open Today" I remember that this author also taught me the
beauty of simple flowers and how to treat every plant I grow as an
individual with its own personality and desires.
	Some years ago, it seems like a different life, I was extremely active in
the political scene.   I obtained endorsement for a safe seat into the
Senate.  For various reasons, I threw in this opportunity and my life took a
distinct turn for the better.   I turned to gardening pursuits.   The
children grew up and made their own nests and gardens.   So, Kees and I
decided to make a second garden and purchased 136 acres in the country to
create another Eden for our wrinkly years.   The knowledge gained from the
hundreds of gardening books I had consumed over many years, was of enormous
help in this creation of our Paradise from scratch .   Books are still my
passion; coffee table editions full of lush photographs [ I gave myself for
Christmas "The Collector's Garden" and "The Naturalist's Garden" by Ken
Druse, superb photography ]; erudite tomes of garden creation [ Sylvia Crowe
]; and, perhaps my favourite "fix", the personal accounts of the making of a
garden [ V. Sackville West, Anne Scott James, Rosemary Verey, our good
Aussie writers and Uncle Tom Cobley and all ], I succumb to each and every
one of them.   Through Internet and email a new source has been opened up
for me, the writings of American gardeners.   These are the things that keep
me up all night and with an empty bank account and big holes in my pockets.
	Thank you, Trish,  for opening the memories of the halcyon days of my
childhood and thank you to the myriads of writers who have given me such
enjoyment, relaxation and knowledge over such a long time.   I have absorbed
the most important lesson, I have learnt it well and I now let the readers
into the secret - the most important ingredient to successful gardening is
the love the garden owner gives to his garden.
	I have no regrets for the directional change that took place in my life.
Plants are so much easier to live with than politicians, after all, they
never answer back.

Gay Klok, 2 Red Chapel Ave, Hobart, Tasmania - "Kibbenjelok", Middleton,
Tasmania
http://members.tripod.com/~klok/WRINKLY_.HTM 
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