The Guilty Gardener: A memoir of love, waxwings and rewilding

By Annabel Christie

Wracked by guilt for breaking a childhood bond with her naturalist father and fearful for the future of the planet in light of the catastrophic impact of climate change, Annabel sets out on a personal journey of redemption. She seeks to reconnect with nature and wildlife in the one place she knows she can make a real difference – her own, barren, neglected garden.

Guided by her eccentric, octogenarian neighbour, and with the ghost of her late father never far from her thoughts, Annabel begins to rediscover the therapeutic art of wildlife gardening. Her moving and often very funny green odyssey travels from an idyllic nature-filled childhood of hay meadows, hedgehogs and waxwings in the 1970s to the present day where biodiversity loss is reaching crisis point.

The Guilty Gardener neatly blends quirky memoir with pertinent observation of our natural world while showcasing the key to successful wildlife gardening. Illustrated with exquisite line drawings, it reminds us of the simple necessity and beauty of nature and how rewilding can restore love, hope, even life itself.

“This book is a lovely demonstration of the importance of gardening for wildlife and enjoying all the benefits this brings, both for our natural world and also for our own wellbeing.”
Estelle Bailey, CEO, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Nov 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781803133959

Annabel Christie

Annabel Christie began her writing career in the 1990s as a financial journalist for The Telegraph. Since then, she has held several high-profile public relations positions including Head of Communications for the medical research charity Tommy’s. She now writes solely for pleasure and is a volunteer and wildlife ambassador for her local Wildlife Trust. The Guilty Gardener is her first book.

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Copyright © 2022 Annabel Christie

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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ISBN 978 1803133 959

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Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

In memory of my father – a true naturalist

The earth,

the air, the land and

the water are on

loan from our children.

We have to hand over to

them

at least as it was handed

over to us

Mahatma Gandhi

Contents

One

The Letter

It was my father’s letter that finally did it, rediscovering it after all these years. It was like a thunderbolt to my conscience, a silent plea from the grave reminding me of my magical childhood garden, broken promises and my failure to make amends.

I knew at once I had to act. I couldn’t prevaricate any longer and watch helplessly as everything my father strove for, everything he believed in and once taught me, fell asunder and was lost forever. I would put nature first again and do everything in my power to help save our precious wildlife before it was too late. And I would do this in the one place I knew I could make a difference – my own neglected garden. I owed it to Dad, I owed it to the children but, most of all, I owed it to nature.

When he passed away three years ago from cancer, my dear father left me with a gaping hole in my heart and a mountain of regrets. Throughout his seventy-seven years on this earth, he had always put nature first in everything he sought to do and although he would never have admitted it – he was far too conservative for that – he was an activist at heart, a fervent environmentalist who would have fought tooth and nail to protect our natural heritage.

If he were here today, he would be devastated by the catastrophe unfolding in our natural world, and the continuing threat to our planet from climate change and other man-made disasters. He would be out there campaigning for a wilder Britain, and I am certain he would be telling me, over and over again, to get off my lazy, negligent backside and rewild too.

His letter could easily have not been found. It was tucked inside the gilt-edged front cover of an antiquated butterfly book and slipped onto my lap like a billet doux as I lifted the old, heavy tome from the coffin depths of my father’s leather-bound trunk. It was the third anniversary of his death and the first time I had dared explore the musty interior of his school chest, curious but nervous to uncover what childhood secrets it might hold. When I prised open the trunk’s metal clasps, I was amazed to discover it was packed with my father’s precious collection of wildlife and gardening books, each one a reminder of my nature-filled past.

The tome which hid the letter was my father’s first edition of the Natural History of British Butterflies by the renowned lepidopterist, Frederick William Frohawk. Dad and I had often shared it together when I was still his little girl and held in nature’s thrall. Snuggled on his knee, in the light of the fire, I would marvel at the exquisite, intricate drawings of Frohawk’s different butterflies while he related, in minute detail, the life stages of each species and their individual characteristics, always leaving me intrigued and eager for more.

Moments like this brought me close to my father and inspired a childhood passion for nature that defined our special relationship in the first decade and a half of my life.

Dad realised early on that we shared this love of wildlife and would often invite me to help him in the garden. I readily accepted, following him like a lapdog through the jungle of long meadow grass and wildflowers that cloaked our back garden, eager to listen and learn from the great master as he clipped his roses or collected seeds to pot later. In return for imparting his botanical knowledge, he got me sowing and hoeing vegetables each spring in his resplendent Victorian glass greenhouse, planting flowers for butterflies, bees and caterpillars, building log piles for beetles and lizards and making cosy shelters for foxes and hedgehogs. I was never bored when I was with him but in the rare moments I was at a loose end, Dad would fling me a packet of wildflower seeds and instruct me to scatter them liberally, saying that each seed was a tiny grain of magic that, with the first warm rays of sunshine, would alchemise into food for hungry pollinators. I could barely wait for the snow to melt and the advent of summer when the seeds’ tiny flowerheads sprouted through the grass, transforming our garden into a kaleidoscope of vibrant colour and insect life.

I loved Dad’s eternal enthusiasm for nature, and perhaps his greatest legacy to me and my older brother, Simon, was teaching us that we were part of nature too, simple animals just like the badger, the fox and the hare.

‘Our relationship with nature is actually more important than any other,’ he said to me one summer’s afternoon in 1977 as we sat together on the terrace of our family home in Kent watching a small mouse nibbling some wild strawberries. ‘Break the link, and we all suffer.’ He drew a circular diagram then, like a teacher would draw at school, showing me how mice eat insects and plants (even fungi) and how animals higher up the food chain – the fox, owl, hawk and snake – rely on the mice and other small creatures to sustain them. ‘Even the least exciting lichen on a rotting tree trunk will be nectar for some garden insect or become nesting material for a bird. Every living organism in the garden has its part to play in the rich tapestry of life,’ he proudly told me.

Our green odyssey continued in harmony for most of my childhood and early teens until, around my fifteenth birthday, I made the grand gesture that I didn’t want to help him anymore in the garden; I was through with potting plants and sowing seeds and no longer cared as much about the wildlife. I had better things to do; it was 1980 and I wanted to be out partying with school friends, having fun and savouring my full quota of teenage kicks. My days of being my father’s lapdog, grounded at home and in the garden, were well and truly over.

I know he was devastated because he retreated to the sanctity of his greenhouse for what seemed like an eternity and never once asked me to help him again in the garden. I felt a little ashamed of letting him down but not enough to change course. Then, a few years later, after I had completed my degree and was on the cusp of leaving home to go travelling, he sent me the letter. It was the first proper correspondence he had ever written to me and the one and only time I remember him letting his feelings truly show. I kept it for many years in a drawer in my childhood bedroom in Kent and then, after he died and my mother moved closer to me, it travelled with her in the antiquated trunk.

I lift the handwritten missive carefully out of its envelope and reread it in the hazy morning light.

The Old Coach House

Kent

October 5th, 1988

My Dearest Annabel,

You may remember that you wrote a nature diary in 1978 when you were 12 years old. I kept it safe because although nature and gardening are not top of your agenda right now, I’m sure they will take centre stage again when you are older and realise what you have missed.

I wanted to write to you because I fear we are losing the wonderful world you were so fortunate to enjoy as a child. Our never-ending pursuit of so-called ‘progress’ is pushing our planet to its outer limits and I fear it will collapse completely if we continue on this road.

I hope you will always hold wildlife close to your heart, just as you did as a child, and do everything in your power to protect it. Whatever you do, never forget how precious nature once was to you and how you marvelled at the changing seasons, our glorious birds (do you remember the waxwings?), the indigo cornflowers and delicate, crimson poppies that bloomed in the fields behind the house; our ancient oak that gave us shelter and acorns, and all the tiny creatures that enthralled your young mind. Don’t lose the child inside you, dear Annabel, and never forget that nature brings enduring peace and happiness.

I know you are jetting off soon to India with friends on an adventure of a lifetime so I thought you might appreciate these wise words from the great Mahatma Gandhi to set you on your way:

‘Any number of experiments

is too small and no sacrifice

is too great for attaining

sympathy with nature.’

Much Love, Dad

Two

Guilt

Each word was carefully chosen, each line a testament to my past. I feel the tears welling up just imagining my father writing those heartfelt words all those years ago. He would have been seated at his heavy Churchillian desk at the window in his study, surrounded by his nature books with sadness no doubt etched across his furrowed brow as he stared out at the beautiful garden I had so glibly rejected.

Wiping my dampened cheeks, I place the letter back into its envelope and lever myself out of bed. I have vague memories of the nature diary my father mentioned but no idea where it went. I don’t remember seeing it in the trunk with his books or anywhere in my mother’s new flat; I have to assume it got lost or left behind when my mother moved out of the family home. I reach for my pen and writing pad and scribble a brief message to the new owners of our old coach house, a young family with two small boys, asking if they would kindly check the outbuildings and attic above my childhood bedroom in case the diary got left behind. It’s a long shot, I think, but worth a try. I would love to find it again.

After sealing the envelope, I go downstairs to the kitchen to feed Georgie, our black Flat-coated Retriever. She’s lying upside down in her enormous brown cushioned bed, her four long legs erect like pokers and a cuspate head stretched backwards, but she springs into action when I enter the room, swaying her body affectionately in greeting. I sink my face into her soft fur and give her a long hug before getting myself a large cup of fresh coffee and sitting down at the kitchen table to plan my next move. Sooty, our dishevelled cat, comes sidling in from outside and, rather annoyingly, rubs her furry back against my leg, leaving an itchy trail of soft grey hair. ‘I guess you need feeding too,’ I sigh, flicking the fine down off my jeans.

Gazing absently out through the misted window at our back garden, dank and grey in the sombre morning light, I’m struck suddenly by the notable absence of birdlife. There’s not a single bird flitting about in the trees or foraging for food on the ground, not even a fat pigeon. Twenty years ago, this wouldn’t have been the case. When we first moved to our cottage in Oxfordshire, the garden was a veritable aviary, a haven for birds of all shapes and sizes. I remember my father remarking how lucky we were to have so many different songbird varieties. They were all here – blackbirds, warblers, finches, tits, thrushes, skylarks and blackcaps – but no longer. I can’t believe the decline in just two decades and, more to the point, I can’t believe it’s taken me till now to notice.

Leaving my coffee half drunk, I grab Georgie’s lead and stroll out the back door. I want to take a closer look at the garden. There’s a rustle in one of the bushes but no bird emerges. There’s nothing, a deathly void and silence with the only intermittent sound the distant drone of morning traffic making its way up and down our hill. I decide to abandon breakfast altogether and head straight out for my walk, calling to Georgie who has