THERE was nothing in Martin Gibbons’s early life that gave the merest hint of the career that lay ahead. Yet, today, he lives in what was the old kitchen garden of Ham House, with his wife, Emma, a nurserywoman, and two teenage sons, named after plant hunters Jamie (Fortune) and Henry (Kingdon). Together with their home, the site houses The Palm Centre Mr Gibbons set up in the 1980s, where he cares for his National Collection of Trachycarpus palms, several of which he discovered and introduced.
The first clue came with his departure, six days after his 21st birthday, to Australia, paying £10 as part of the Assisted Passage scheme. As a ‘£10 Pom’, he worked his way through Australia doing seasonal work, selling saucepans door to door and completing a stint on the railways. For six months, he slept under canvas working with a surveyor in the heart of the Australian desert on a seismic survey prospecting
