RURAL COMMUNITIES IN LINCOLNSHIRE
North & South Somercotes
A Bouquet for Communication
It is difficult to remember just how it began, but I suppose at one of our regular committee meetings I must have said something like "Do you think people would enjoy a little piece about a favourite flower each month?"
II expect someone must have said "Oh yes, I'm sure they would" thinking to themselves that it would at least help to fill one of the pages since material always was in short supply. ("And still is" the Editor is sure to mutter.)
So began a series of short articles on flowers from March 1987 until the end of 1988, followed by a year of herbs, one for each month. Then February 1990 saw the return of the flowers and the articles eventually came to an end with a piece about Poinsettias for Christmas 1991. A very rough estimate suggests that I wrote about 10,000 words in all, and enjoyed every minute of it. I read up on each plant and added anything that I could from my own experience hoping that it would make a nice mixture of the "well I never" and the "so that's how you do it". It certainly taught me a lot, and led to something that I would never have expected.
Talking to a visitor to the garden one day, I mentioned that I wrote these pieces for "Communication" and he said, "Well in that case, why don't you write something like it for the Grimsby Evening Telegraph? I work for them and I'll suggest it." Which led quite soon to an invitation to write a weekly article on gardening for them. We soon came up with the idea of accompanying the articles with a drawing by Twink Addison, a partnership which still operates now.
You will see then that by chance, "Communication" led me into doing something that I didn't even know I wanted to, or could, do. So I would like to take this opportunity to gather together some of those favourite garden flowers and herbs -
Judy Harry, South Somercotes