Salisbury lives Caroline Currie
THE GREEN-FINGERED AUTHOR ON HER HOME TOWN AND THE ‘DARK ARTS’ OF GARDENING
Q. Where’s home in Salisbury? A. A 1937 pebbledash on the corner of two roads. It ain’t pretty but it has inner beauty: original picture rails, doors, floorboards and blue and yellow stained glass windows (UPVC is a four-letter word to me). The wraparound garden has lilacs, plum, apples and a huge bay tree – also, I think, original features. Q. How long have you lived in the area? A. Twenty years. Fate brought me here via a brief diversion to the Loire Valley, after working in Edinburgh in the auction business. Q. Your top spot in the city? A. Home. Here, at my desk in the sun, with the cat snoring on the bed, and the view from my window of the spire and the pigeons eating the plum blossom. Q. Favourite local restaurant? A. Strada, in town. You can go there with anyone any time. And in the countryside? The Horseshoe at Ebbesbourne Wake, run by Pat and Tony: an old-fashioned pub that does a mouthwatering Sunday roast and the best blackcurrant sorbet outside of France. Q. What’s the best thing about Salisbury? A. The sight of the spire, which means you’re home. Also its historic
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heart and its size: you can walk from one side to the other; it has a station, a cinema, a theatre, and the natives are so friendly. Oh, and the buses are great now. The number 4 comes right past my door. Q. How did your interest in gardening begin? A. At my mother’s knee. We had a big herbaceous border at our house in Surrey and I learnt what larkspur and clarkia were, rootling around with her out there. I learnt to recognise ground elder while swinging upside down from a bar we had in the garden. Q. The best and the worst thing about gardening? A. Best, being outdoors, listening to the birds. Can’t think of a worst. Q. What drove you to write your book, A Spade is a Spade? A. My nephew Hugo’s suggestion that I write down all I know about “the dark arts of gardening” before I died. He is entirely to blame. Q. What should readers expect from it? A. I asked Paula Mason of Sweeny Hair this question while she was cutting my hair. She said: “I like the idea of month-by-month. I don’t know what I should be doing – cutting back, deadheading… other books assume you know what
Top: Caroline’s book A Spade is a Spade Middle: The newly-adopted (snoring) addition to Caroline’s household
Bottom: Mompesson House on Cathedral Close
this means. I like the way it’s written, it’s real, easy to understand, and the humour and personality come through. From the first page you’re friends with the writer.” Q. Your favourite local garden? A. Mompesson House and garden in the Close are gems, and I love looking at other people’s gardens, like the one at the Matrons’ College or any you can peer into for free, and start chatting to the owners. Q. Your perfect garden? A. Alas, no such thing, as long as weeds seed and snails glide. A garden changes all the time and you’ll drive yourself crazy aiming for perfection. I go for good colours, good smells, peaceful, slightly shaggy, a garden in which friends can feel comfortable sitting with a glass of rosé. Q. Describe your dream dinner party line-up of five famous people, living or dead: A. Oh bliss, this question… Nobody who tells jokes, except the master, Ken Dodd; the baritone/tenor Placido Domingo, who I’ve always fancied, and who’ll give us a good bellow; Christopher Lloyd, the God of Gardening, (but not his reputedly snappy dachshunds); Robert B Parker, the American author of the Spenser series of detective stories, a wonderful writer, dry, spare, witty; Eleanor of Aquitaine: anyone who could survive 15 years in a freezing tower at Old Sarum, bear ten children and go on Crusade in 11-something might be a rather scary dinner guest, but what a woman. Wonder what she’d make of Ken Dodd. And can I have a sixth not famous? Stephanie Donaldson in Edinburgh would enjoy this party as much as me, and probably do the cooking too. Thanks, Steph. Q. Why should people get out there and start gardening? A. Because it does us all good to be part of nature and the seasons, birdlife, beelife, froglife, plantlife. “There’s nothing in life that can’t be improved by gardening,” an occasionally depressed friend told me, and which I quote on the back cover. Let’s go for it.
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