… and probably the most entertaining one as well! Beverly Nichols' Down the Garden Path was published in 1932 and is a flower-inspiring and at the same time cringe-worthily blunt tale of its time. I came across it one night browsing our inherited bookshelf. It’s something I do when I can’t sleep. It contains books from the last 250 years covering topics and interests of the family and ranges from archery to veterinary notes for horse owners, pheasant rearing and guidelines for married women. It is a fascinating testament to lifestyles and attitudes during different eras, and I always find something that draws me in.
Of course, there are garden manuals which are timeless because plants and their biological behaviour haven’t really changed much in the past 100 years, or so I think. However, the one book that fell into my hands that night and looked just like another manual turned out to be the most entertaining gardening book I’ve ever read!
To give you a sense of why this is, I’ll share the first passage of the book and you’ll understand. It begins thus:
I bought my cottage by sending a wireless to Timbuctoo from the Mauretania, at midnight, with a fierce storm lashing the decks.
It sounds rather vulgar, but it is true. The cottage used to belong to a charming American, whom I knew very slightly. I read of his death in a paper which I picked up in the stuffy, pitching library of the aforesaid vessel. It told me that Mr. So-and-so had died, and that he had left all his property to his sister… who was one of my best friends.
The liner dipped and tossed. I studied the paper. I saw that Wall Street, the night before, had been giving one if its celebrated impersonations of the fall of Jericho. People had been leaping from the tops of skyscrapers with monotonous regularity. Nothing seemed stable in this world. And then, looking again at the little obituary notice of this man whom I had scarcely known, I remembered among his possessions had been an exquisite thatched cottage, where I had once spent a weekend. The garden had been a blaze of roses, and there was a row of madonna lilies on either side of the porch. The scent of those lilies assailed me.
I reached for a piece of paper, scribbled the name of the American’s sister, and the word Timbuctoo, whither she had ventured on a wild excursion. I rang the bell and wrote an offer. As the page boy took my cablegram, I scratched two hundred pounds from the sum I had proposed. He had hardly left the lounge before I tried to call him back, for I regretted the whole idea. But he was gone, and the night was very stormy indeed, and the decks were dark and slippery. Before I could reach the wireless operator’s headquarters, the message was sent.
Thank God for that storm at sea. My offer was accepted. Within a week I was driving through the quiet lanes, towards my inheritance.
You will probably understand why I got hooked from the first page. It’s because it isn’t your average gardening book. It’s an autobiographical novel, of sorts, by a very gifted writer about his experience of buying a cottage in the English countryside and learning his lessons around the garden. Anyone going through a similar experience will definitely be able to relate, even if this is a story from 100 years ago.
What’s more, it gives a fascinating glimpse into life and perceptions of a long-gone era. From a modern perspective, one could argue that some of Nichol’s descriptions of people are offensive, or at the very least completely inappropriate. For example, I think it is safe to say that he didn’t like women very much.
It appears to me that he was generally not much of a people-, but rather a plant-lover. Here’s a quote that, in my opinion, summarises his attitude towards people quite well:
Long experience has taught me that people who do not like geraniums have something morally unsound about them. Sooner or later you will find them out; you will discover that they drink, or steal books, or speak sharply to cats. Never trust a man or a woman who is not passionately devoted to geraniums.
You will find a lot of passages similar to this in the book, which at times make you wonder: Is he being serious, or is he pulling my leg? It’s not always easy to tell, especially if you’re not born with a sense for English humour, then add the challenge of knowing what was and wasn’t acceptable at the time. Having said that, my overall impression is that this book has a humorous tone of voice which makes for a light and entertaining read.
However, I mainly like this book because Nichols very entertainingly describes his often self-deprecating beginner experiences with his newly acquired English cottage garden and the people that drop in and out of it. His passion for flowers and plants is infectious and makes you want to get your spade out and dig a bed for yourself. For beautiful flowers that is.
You’ll also learn a thing or two. I personally loved the chapter about winter flowers. Because, like Nichols, I often feel the lack of colour and cheer in the garden during the long, dark and often depressing winter months and found some inspiration in the solutions he came up with.
At times, his descriptions can turn a bit lengthy in gazing at the innermost naval of a flower petal, however, he always turns it around with another eyebrow-raising, or laughing-out-loud kind of story about a neighbour who annoyingly always outcompetes him in his gardening efforts, or a certain woman who keeps coming back to seek his unattainable affections, or the professor who has his very own, unique view of the world, and other intruders to his magic garden.
All in all, I would say this book is neither a typical gardening book, nor a straight-forward novel. It is rather an accumulation of thoughts and anecdotes around the author’s experiences in his garden and the people in his life around it. Nonetheless, it is a highly entertaining and educating read about how to treat and love your garden, and about what the English countryside and its people used to be like 100 years ago.
There are 2 sequels to this book: A Thatched Roof and A Village in a Valley, which might be worth a try if you enjoyed reading this one. I haven’t read them yet, but they are on my list.
ADDENDUM:
It is now December, a good half year on since I wrote this article above. I have made it through A Thatched Roof and A village in a Valley by now and if you are wondering if it's worth it, here are my thoughts:
Enthused by the first book in the trilogy, of course I couldn't resist acquiring the second and third volumes via World of Books. However, I must admit that A Thatched Roof by Beverly Nichols took effort to finish. Reading it is like a self-fulfilling prophecy, because it starts out with a foreword on sequels, and promising not to be one, because they tend to be bad. Instead, we are prepared to go on a journey around the inside of the cottage.
Despite said promises, however, I can't say I saw them fulfilled. The book was trying to be spontaneous and witty like the first one, but lacked the purpose and focus the first part had around the garden. And even though the author openly admits to having a weakness for wandering off and following his natural flow of thoughts, he does get rather lost in self-indulgent wordery without much content.
Reading the forword, I was excited to finally get a full tour around Nichols' cottage, because I am just as interested in period interiors as I am in gardens. But while he does talk about his study and the Garden Room in detail, we don't learn much about the rest of the quaint, English cottage he purchased with such drama and nostalgic romance in book one.
Instead we find ourselves discovering the workings of water in the village, a mystical statue discovery, fretting about cats patrolling garden walls in London, and lengthy descriptions of his innermost musings about the world and its people, which are at times as amusing as they were in the first part, but often just feel like trying to fill more pages with words.
To be fair, naturally, there are a few interesting descriptions about the times we find ourselves in - the 1930 - where he talks about the introduction of electric light and describes the age of the telegram in the village:
When you send a telegram at Allways you have to walk across a field, go down a lane to the post office, and hand your telegram to one of the charming daughters of the postmistress, who then proceeds to telephone it to the next exchange. I think that a lot of rooks have made their nests in the wires between Allways, because there is always a noise of cawing and buzzing, so that she often has to repeat the message several times, in a very loud voice, to the great elevation and delight of any village boys wo may be buying stamps at the time.
Also, the local characters do come alive again, but not enough for me to stay awake during my bed time reading session. Regardless, I forced myself to follow the seemingly endless series of random observations to the end, and then decided not to read the final part in the trilogy for fear of word exhaustion. What on earth is there left to talk about if he's already running out of content in book two?!
Well, it was desperation that drove me to open A Village in a Valley by Beverly Nichols a couple of months or so later. And I am so glad I did! Because at the time I was reading a series of historic novels written about the Georgian Era and had just finished one book, but couldn't get hold of the next one in the series, because these too were written awhile back and only available on the second hand market.
I had to wait three weeks and was left with nothing on my thanks-to-moving-house-empty shelf but the book I had decided not to read. With gritted teeth I pulled it out and put it on my bedside table. At least it would help me fall asleep more quickly.
I have to say, it far exceeded my expectations! Nichols picked his very unique approach back up where he had left it in book one, this time really focusing in on what it's like to live in a village and amongst a village community.
Topics such as property development, investment frauds and villagers coming together to help a community member in need are just as current as they are timeless and make this third book so heart-warming and relatable to read. It talks about the good, the bad and the sad, and is ultimately about the beautiful imperfection of being human and life itself.
I am a very slow reader, and despite the odd chapter down wordy lane, I enjoyed reading the book so much, that I had finished it before my Georgian sequel had arrived. It was time well spent and a perfect bed time read, if you are interested in what life in the English countryside might have been like in the 1930s.
I would recommend volume one and three of Beverly Nichol's trilogy as entertaining testaments of their time - and part two only for those who have a compulsion, like me, to completion. Enjoy!
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