Sarah Raven

Speaker 30:01

BBC sounds music

Presenter0:03

Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Discs Podcast. Every week, I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book, and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. And, for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:45

My castaway this week is the gardener and writer Sarah Raven. She was a new mother and working as a junior doctor when she took on the commission to write her first book, The Cussing Garden, in 1996. Stepping back from medicine to write about her love of gardening may sound like a new frontier. In fact, it was a return to her roots. Her father was a keen amateur botanist, and as a child, she would accompany him on road trips in search of specimens. Plants were completely in my blood, she remembers. I didn't know it at the time, but my path was already set. Her passion became her livelihood. A kitchen table startup selling seeds has blossomed into a multi-million pound company, and that first best-selling book was followed by many more. Of her own garden, she says, it feeds me on every level. I think about it from the moment I get up to the moment I go to sleep. I can't imagine life without it. Sarah Raven, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Oh, thank you so much. That's such a nice introduction.

Presenter1:45

Well, you're very welcome. We're really glad to have you here, Sarah. But I do think that a trip to your garden in East Sussex would be therapeutic for all of us. So why don't we start by you taking us there? If we were to step into your garden together at Pirch Hill, what would we see? What would we smell? Ah, so much. So the roses are just coming to an end, but the sweet peas are following straight on behind them, really. And then on to other lovely, unusual scented things like the scented gladiolus acidanthra, which I really like, which has got a sort of slightly lemon-y fragrance. Anyway, dahlias, dahlias, dahlias. Yes, you're known for your dahlias. Yeah, we're moving into massive dahlia fiesta time. Don't both of your girls have a dahlia named after them. They do. And my husband actually does he. Yeah, as do I. You're also very well known for your ability to combine plants. The queen of the container garden is one of your nicknames. And you once said that the best way to combine plants together, whether it is in a container or you're thinking about your garden, is to imagine guests at a wedding. I love this metaphor. So talk me through it. How does it work? I guess as an ex-medic who came to medicine late, I really need acronyms and ways to remember things. For me, when I was putting together colour, I then backfilled thinking, actually, how am I doing this instinctively that I can teach? And what I realised is I was picking a big flower, which I call my bride's.

Sarah Raven2:21

So

Presenter3:10

And then I always pick something of the same colour, but a little more delicate, a little more background, which I call my bridesmaid. And she's there to back up the bride and not compete with her. So she can't be in a more flouncy dress or a more contrasty colour or whatever. She's got to match in and be a little bit background on that day. And then, all importantly, I always choose some contrasts, and I call him my gate crasher. There's one at every wedding, that's phrasing. Yeah, the best weddings are off the guests or often the gate crasher. I also have a phrase for

Sarah Raven3:37

Is that

Presenter3:44

thinking about form and if you can overlay these two things of colour and form you're onto an absolute cracking container collection. And that is the bride is then the thriller and then around it is a filler and then you've got to have something tall in a big pot, that's a pillar and then you've got to have something cascading down and that's a spiller. So you've got thriller, filler, pillar, spiller.

Presenter4:09

Sarah, let's start with your first disc. What are we going to hear? And what

Speaker 24:12

Bye.

Presenter4:13

So my first is the first ever record I bought. I think I was eight, or maybe I was seven. My older brother, Hugh, who's one up from me, went to Andy's Records in Cambridge Market and bought it for me, and it's See My Baby Jive by Wizard. It reminds me of that still very, very like a child and no hint of teenage years. And so joyful and kind of free for that.

Sarah Raven4:34

Uh

Speaker 34:41

In my baby die

Speaker 34:44

She hangs on to me, I feel pretty girls

Sarah Raven4:48

Fuck.

Speaker 34:48

Uh

Sarah Raven4:52

Lady Child

Speaker 24:54

Uh

Sarah Raven4:55

Such a name

Speaker 24:56

He's a guy Will everyone you meet coming down the street Just to see my brave giant

Presenter5:07

Wizard and see my baby jive. So Sarah Raven, you were born in February 1963 in Cambridge to John and Faith Raven and you're the second youngest of five children, though only just. Your twin sister Jane is four minutes younger than you, I think. She is, yeah. I pushed my way out first, yeah. Sharp elbows, yeah. So when you think back to your early childhood, what is it that you remember? I loved nature almost as soon as I could walk, I think.

Sarah Raven5:27

Yeah.

Presenter5:35

And I really loved plants and flowers. And of course, when you're down low and you're little, you're at flower height. So I think I bonded with that at a very early stage. And obviously, that was a love that was shared in the family because your father was a classic student at Cambridge University in his professional life, but he was a keen botanist in the rest of his life. And his book, A Botanist's Garden, describes two gardens that he and your mother developed. So everybody in the family loved gardens and the outdoors. Were you out there together as a family? A bit. In Italy, we used to go off on day trips as a family very much and botanising. Also, very private time with me with my father. He had a Morris Minor and then moved on, upgraded to a green Simpka, not a glamorous car, and finally ended up with a mini clubman. Off we'd go every weekend, me and my dad. It was very precious time for me because my dad was a very loving and generous person and taught me kind of everything I know really.

Sarah Raven6:25

And

Presenter6:39

So the two of you would go out. That must have been special'cause he by the sounds of it was very gregarious, very sociable. So getting him one on one, having your own time with him, must have felt really special.

Presenter6:51

He was very, very popular, my dad, but he did have depression. So it was more complicated than being a sort of party man. I wouldn't say he was that at all. He was quite introverted, but also very funny, laughed a lot, very joyful. But there was definitely a dark side. I can't sort of pretend that there wasn't. And because he had health issues when you were little, you would often be his legs. So he would send you out of the car and he could spot things at quite high speed by the sounds of it. How did those trips actually work, Sarah?

Presenter7:23

Yeah, he was an absolutely terrible driver. So we would often be driving at 20 maximum 30 miles an hour, even if we were on a dual carriageway, which is not the thing to do. But we would both be spotting flowers as we were driving along. But it wasn't a good idea that his eyes were on the verge rather than on the road. He gradually taught me that I became his eyes on the road, and he could trust me that I could spot a colour difference. So suddenly, if there was a purple, he would just draw into the hard shoulder and do a bit of botanizing. You know, you really wouldn't be able to do that now, we do. But as his emphysema got worse, he was not able to get around nearly so much. And actually, at our school, we were rather embarrassed, Jane and I, because he was called the humming man, because he couldn't breathe out properly, so he would mmm.

Presenter8:11

As he was coming towards you, which of course is incredibly moving and sad because it did cause his death as quite a young man, really. That was in a way what gave me my botany legs because he could no longer walk very far. We would have this botany book by Keebel Martin. He'd show me the picture and then I would go off, sometimes for 20 minutes, sometimes for four hours. And then I wouldn't be able to pick it, but he would just have to trust my word that I had. Well, it sounds like you and your dad had a wonderful time together and a very close relationship, too. What about your mother, Faith? Tell me about her. So, my mum is very much a matriarch in our family. She's about to be 94, very strong character, held it all together. Not an authoritarian at all, but just the rules certainly came from her. If anything, my dad was sort of naughty in the back of the car with the rest of us. But we were incredibly lucky through my mother to be introduced to a very strong relationship with Scotland. My mother's garden, much more than my father's, full of very dramatic colours. And I always was allowed and encouraged to pick and bring things back in from this amazing place. So she was the person who started you picking flowers? Yeah, my dad always had this rule with me in the wild that if I could see a hundred, I was allowed to pick one and bring it back so I would get to know it in the school week. But my mum definitely used to have there was a big, big round table where we were brought up, where we all sat around for meals, and just in her sort of corner of it, there were always these lovely little glasses, just a sprig of this or that. And that certainly is, I think, the best way to have flowers in the house. Just really simple, single things where you can appreciate the individual flower.

Presenter9:53

Sarah, it's time to go to the music. Your second disc today. What are we going to hear and why are you taking it with you? I was brought up reeling, Scottish dancing in Cayleys. When you're tiny, when you're sort of five or six, there are two really easy reels to learn. One is Strip the Willow, which most people know a little bit, but the other is A Dashing Light Sergeant, which as a twin we always rather love because there'd be we only needed to find one person, but we could then be dancing together.

Sarah Raven10:23

All right boys, I know you're enjoying yourselves. I know you've got this party spirit, but I think we can do the dashing white sergeant a little better. So let's line up, eh?

Presenter11:21

Jimmy Shand and the dashing white sergeant. Could you still do the moves, do you think, if you needed to? I can. I can. It's in there deep. It's like Latin names.

Sarah Raven11:26

If you know I can.

Presenter11:30

So listen, Sarah, we were talking about your early life. Tell me a bit about your school days. So you and your twin sister Jane, you went to an all-girls Catholic boarding school. How did you fit in there? We are actually not Catholic, but we still went there. I wasn't distinguished at school at all. Was that tricky? Because obviously your father, a Cambridge Don, you know, what steps to follow in? It was quite embarrassing. You did get in trouble a bit. What kind of scrapes did you get into at school? What actually happened? I was taught by a nun in my, maybe when I was 12, called Sister Scholastica. And I remember on the first day of term in her form, I remember her coming in saying, right, girls, there are some rules that you all need to know about. And the first is, if you're at a party when you're a little bit older and someone turns off the lights, you've got to get onto a table and shout, turn on the lights, I'm a Catholic.

Sarah Raven11:46

Was that true?

Sarah Raven11:49

A Cambridge Dawn, you know, it was.

Sarah Raven11:55

Yeah.

Presenter12:20

And the next one she said, and there are others, which is if you want to sit on a boy's knee when you're sixteen, you have to put two telephone directories between you and the boy.

Presenter12:31

Two, two

Presenter12:33

You know, one's not going to be enough. This tallies with my experience of common school. When I was 14, I'd started boarding, and I was then in the house and also the class of a nun called Sister Amadeus, and she really, really hated me. I just annoyed her. She said I was haughty and naughty, and that whenever she told me off, I would just stick my nose in the air. And I can kind of believe I was quite annoying.

Sarah Raven12:48

I just

Presenter12:58

And so I was first of all removed from the boarding house and went back to live with my parents. And then I was allowed to do my O-levels, but then I had to leave.

Presenter13:06

You mentioned that your your dad had been dealing with health issues. Yeah. And he was in his fifties, I think, when you were born, so he was an older father. How was his health by the time you went home to live? He was very frail. He was six foot three.

Sarah Raven13:09

Uh

Presenter13:19

I hadn't changed, but he was seven stone. He had a duodenal ulcer, so he had surgery and had basically what is kind of like a gastroplasty now, I suppose. So, just a very small space that he couldn't hold food in. And so, he just couldn't really digest things very well at all. And also, he had been a heavy smoker, and he also became quite a heavy drinker, and just the combination of his physical frailty with these things that weren't good for him.

Sarah Raven13:33

Come on.

Sarah Raven13:34

Yeah.

Sarah Raven13:43

And just

Presenter13:50

I remember we were told if if he got bronchitis one more time he would die, and that was when maybe we were 14 or 15. You used to have been so worried about him. Yeah, it was very.

Presenter14:00

It was um it was very difficult because he was our rock, um, but a very fragile rock, uh, and particularly for some of us in the family.

Sarah Raven14:05

Yeah.

Presenter14:11

He was a very emotionally stabilising person. For you. For me, but not just me, other siblings. But I was very close to him and so he died actually when I was just seventeen. He died in early March and we were born in February. So, yeah. Was it sudden? Was it a shock? He had a fall and he already was so frail he he didn't recover.

Sarah Raven14:28

Was it

Presenter14:35

In the hospital, I remember the nurses saying, I'm afraid your granddad's not very well. And we say, It's not our granddad.

Presenter14:43

Yeah, and must have been an awful time to follow. What what do you remember about that? I mean, how how did you cope? You said you was your rock. I kinda left home really at that point. I made my own way and my friends and my twin, who I've remained very close to, became absolutely pivotal to my survival, really. So they gave you the emotional support?

Sarah Raven15:03

So that

Presenter15:05

Yeah. Your dad left you a very special bequest. He left you his mini clubman, the same car that you'd taken on those day trips when you were spotting plants at speed. And you also inherited his collected works on botany. So that was 18 volumes of botanical drawings. And he and your grandfather, Charles, had worked on them together. That sounds very special. Yeah, it was their bond too. So when my father was young, I believe he and his dad would do exactly the same as my father had done with me. But whenever he found a new plant that was new to him, he had a rule that he would either have to sit in the field if it was rare and paint it, or he could pick it and bring it and paint it that night. Maybe the summer before he died, he found a very rare hawkweed, and his specialism was hawkweeds. And I hadn't seen him painting for so long because he'd obviously seen all the plants already that he'd painted. It was very wonderful to see that link into his past, his childhood with his father. I know for you, teaching and passing on what you know and what you've learned is really critical to what you do. Does that come from your dad? I think so. I mean, it only occurred to me quite recently, actually, because I was thinking of giving up teaching. And then I just know I'd really miss that mode of communication where you're sitting and you suddenly see a spark in someone's eye, or they come up and ask you slightly shyly in one of the breaks, and you realise you kind of got them, that perhaps they were in quite a fallow period in their life, a lack of inspiration, and then suddenly they realize there's this whole world that's just sitting out there just on your doorstep. And I love that feeling that somehow it's sort of genetic because my dad never taught me to teach, but I think he taught me a love of learning new things. And then if you know them, there's nothing nicer than handing them on. Sarah Raven, let's have some more music. Your next disc, if you would, what's it going to be?

Presenter17:04

So my next one is actually taking me into my early twenties, in fact, at the end of that rocky period after my dad died, and into another rocky period where I'd had my heart broken. And my friends and my family, Jane, packed me off to New York. And it was unbelievably frightening. I was unbelievably unhappy, but it was the most brilliant thing to do because there I was in this slightly broken state. We were in this incredible building that had a burnt-out flat below and a burnt-out flat above. Any bit of music was played, whether it was Chopin or Beethoven or Simple Minds, unbelievably loud. Because no one could complain or would complain. And the Simple Minds, Don't You Forget About Me, was the one that was the anthem of that time.

Speaker 217:56

May pull us apart.

Speaker 217:59

Wanna let it into your heart, baby?

Speaker 218:04

Come on, cheese.

Speaker 218:06

Forget about me.

Speaker 218:10

Don't, don't, don't, don't.

Speaker 218:15

Yeah.

Speaker 218:21

Will you stand up?

Presenter18:24

Simple minds and don't you forget about me. Sarah Raven, after your dad died and you took a year off, travelled a bit and then you went to study history at the University of Edinburgh. How did you cope with another change and why did you choose history? I think I chose history because it's what my mum did. I was quite a people and a mum pleaser at that point in my life. I was kind of what I now know is called the premature fogey and I wanted to be domestic. I was a kind of wife to my flatmates. I mean not in the conjugal sense can I add, but I cooked them dinner and they would then go out dancing and I would stay at home and then be in the library at nine o'clock in the morning. Were you happy?

Presenter19:11

I don't think I was really, to be honest. I didn't know who I was. I was finding who I was. A lot of the guys were going into the city. It was much more binary time. A lot of the women were going to go on and do teacher training.

Presenter19:24

I didn't want to do either of those things, and then it suddenly came to me one day I want to be a doctor.

Presenter19:29

How did people react when you told them? Because you know, you got all the way through this history degree and then you're like, actually, no, I'm going to do this, medical school. Everyone thought I was bonkers.

Sarah Raven19:35

Medical

Presenter19:38

I remember my mum saying, We don't have any doctors in the family. I don't know what you're thinking. And I was like, Well, it's what I want to do, and maybe it's'cause I took care of dad and I was brought up by a nanny. I took care of her when she was dying. And she had died quite close to your dad, I think. Yeah, six weeks before my dad. And that was very difficult. Yeah. The three younger ones in our family, Hugh, Jane and I, were very, very close to her. And then she moved down the road from our family house.

Sarah Raven19:52

And she died.

Sarah Raven19:55

Yeah.

Sarah Raven19:57

Yeah.

Presenter20:07

It was where we would go where things were a bit rough at home. So, in a way, it was returning to this caring, kind of nurturing aspect of yourself. It sounds like that was really trying hard to come out at this point, actually. But, of course, you had the not insubstantial element that you had to get into medical school. And as you said, you'd struggled all the way through school. So, how did you meet the requirements for entry? Yeah, I had to go back to school. And at the end of the first term, I got 8% of my physics A-level. Yeah. And they called me in and they said, Sarah, do you know what? We don't think this is going to work. And I think perhaps you should stop. And there was nothing that will make me want something more than being told to stop. So I knuckled down, stopped going to quite so many parties, and did some work. And I got an A in my biology. And the medical school said I could do this thing called physics for medicine. And I passed. Fantastic. So you were off. And it sounds like you were gaining confidence and kind of finding your feet a little bit as a person too. I can tell from the way you're telling the story. Yes. It was free. I felt free. I felt like what a 23-year-old, 24-year-old should feel, not burdened with the world. And what about life as a junior doctor? How did you take to that?

Sarah Raven21:07

Fantastic.

Presenter21:30

I found it really tough. So I found the encore very emotionally challenging. I just used to feel.

Sarah Raven21:35

I just

Presenter21:37

Really homesick, but I loved the wards. I loved the patients.

Presenter21:42

I was often the person allocated in the team to give the bad diagnoses because I would take time because I'd been there. How did you find that? That must have been difficult. You know, I tended to rather fall in love with these elderly people because my dad and my nanny have been elderly. So it was like being around them again. Yeah. And so I would spend far too much time sitting on the end of their bed. But it it was healing me as well as healing them, I think. Yeah. There's a lot of kind of healing in your story, I think. This healing, nurturing, you know, food, gardening, medicine, they do all seem to interlace. Yes. Do they feel connected to you?

Sarah Raven21:57

My nania

Sarah Raven21:59

Yeah

Sarah Raven22:07

Yeah.

Presenter22:20

Yes, I think so. I think I am a very oversensitive or perhaps just sensitive person. I definitely am a very emotional person. And so I am looking for soothing things, I think. I wake up at quarter to five quite often and I just go for a walk for a couple of hours every morning at this time of year through the garden, into the greenhouse, pinch out my tomatoes, pick some food, and then I'm fine. But I think without that, maybe I wouldn't be fine.

Presenter22:52

Sarah, it's time for your fourth disc. What have you chosen? So this is a really joyful record, which is by Gogo Lorenzo. And this makes me laugh a lot because this was my sort of slightly groovier days. This was when I was in Oxford with all my friends and then the years after when I was training to be a doctor, we were all kind of making our way in the world. But we would almost always at weekends come together, make food and have a bit of a party and always dance. It just takes me straight back there and I can't not, you know, stand up and dance about. It's going to be a lot of dancing on this island. I like it.

Speaker 323:31

When the people come around me just to hear what I say, I round them in and out this out this fit. Say what? You can race if you want to.

Speaker 323:40

Say what, say what, or you can dance if you want to. Say what now, or you can dance if you want to.

Speaker 323:49

No friend can mine, or you can dance if you want to.

Speaker 323:54

Coming on up, y'all.

Speaker 323:57

I say work, I do the games, but if you want to I do it

Presenter24:01

Go Go Lorenzo, and you can dance if you want to. So Sarah Raven, it was whilst you were at medical school that you met your husband, the writer Adam Nicholson. He described you as the substance of life, and someone with whom and alongside whom the future was full of glow and richness. That would win anyone over, I think.

Presenter24:20

What were your first impressions of him?

Presenter24:22

We met in Gatwick Airport actually. We were going on a ski holiday together organised by Adam's sister Rebecca, who was a very good friend of mine at the time. And there we were, and we walked into the airport and she was glowing yellow. And I knew absolutely immediately she had jawned us and she shouldn't be coming. Anyway, she was absolutely determined to come, so she did come, and we went to Valdesaire, and then she ended up being shipped out. We were with her as she saw the medics when we were on the skiing holiday, and then also back here. And that was, I suppose, where we kind of fell in love. Adam was married, and he had three adorable boys, and so it was complicated. I absolutely love the boys. And for you, you know, that was family life that all kicked in when you would have still been quite young at that point. In your mid-twenties, I guess. We, in fact, got married relatively quickly and then started our own family. I was pregnant with our first daughter, Rosie, relatively quickly.

Sarah Raven25:10

Yeah.

Presenter25:23

And also, I think you and Adam were sort of sharing that love of botany and nature together because you travelled to Crete to trace one of your father's searches for rare wildflowers. Tell me about that trip. Yeah, that was amazing. That was a really incredibly touching thing that Adam did. He always felt and still feels, I think, very close to my father, even though he never met him. Is he like your dad? I think he is in being quite a solitary person and taking strength and meaning from the head, the intellect, and study. Adam had found this article written in the Alpine Garden Society manual, which is quite a worthy tome. And very sweetly, he'd found this article about my father writing about going to Crete to the White Mountains to find the difference whether there were two separate species, one called Tulipa sexatlis and one called Tulipa bakeri. And some people were arguing that this tulip was in fact the same and that was just a variant. But my dad wanted to prove that they weren't. There was this particular quarry off a particular road, off another road.

Presenter26:34

Where this tulip, the rare one Saxatlus, was growing. And Adam plotted it all on the map. And off we went in our hard car, found this quarry, found the boulder. Three tulips. Must have been the same tulips that my father had found 40, 50 years ago, which was unbelievably moving, but also unbelievably disappointing because they'd gone over. They'd dropped their petals. So we could see that there were bulbs. We were pretty sure from the photographs that they were the particular tulip. But we couldn't prove it, really. Anyway, then off we got off the car, slightly downcast, heading back to Heraklion to get on the aeroplane, stopped in a hotel and we walked in.

Presenter27:13

Our jaws hit the floor because on the bar was this massive bunch of tulipus axatilis, these bright pink tulips with their egg yellow centres. And it was like, where did you find those? And of course it was higher, so things were later than where we had been. So the next morning at Crackerdawn, we got up into the Harka and went and found these pastures full of these tulips, and it was just magical. Oh, how wonderful. What did it mean to you to be able to share your love of plants, of you know, flowers and the natural world with Adam? And were you able to teach him, as your dad had taught you, to sharpen his botanist's eye? Yes, I mean, he's brilliant now. I think he really loves it, but birds at the moment are, I have to say, more his passion than plants. So now he teaches me all the time. I was lying in the bath this morning and I saw a chiffchaff. I didn't know what a chiffchaff was only a few months ago, but now I do. You wouldn't want a chiffchaff going past you without you noticing, Sarah. That would seem like a terrible waste.

Sarah Raven28:07

Ta-da!

Presenter28:15

All right, let's have some more music. This is your fifth disc today. Are we going to dance again? Oh, we definitely are. So, this is a really good link between that time when we had a young family, and a lot of our friends had young kids, and we often holidayed together. So, we would eat, put the kids to bed, and then we'd put this on. Or the kids would love it too, and they would dance too. And it's Earth, Wind, and Fire September.

Speaker 328:51

Come back.

Speaker 328:53

Changing my

Speaker 328:54

Yeah.

Speaker 328:56

While chasing the clouds away I ought to ring it

Speaker 329:04

Keep our souls singing.

Speaker 229:06

Yeah.

Presenter29:08

Earth, Wind and Fire, and September.

Presenter29:13

Sarah, you and your husband Adam had started your family, but you were now looking for a forever home. What kind of place were you searching for? Adam has very much more set ideas than I do. For him, a kind of family home wasn't a house. It was like a house and then an outbuilding and another outbuilding and another outbuilding. Got it. Okay. We were looking at another house and I'd gone out from London with Rosie when she was a few months old.

Sarah Raven29:31

Another Yeah, let's see.

Sarah Raven29:32

Okay.

Presenter29:40

or even weeks, and she had hooping cough. I remember so well the the day I found

Presenter29:45

Perch Hill because we'd gone for a walk and she was in the push chair and she was not very well. And then I came across this place and felt, oh, this is it. And I remember going to a phone box and ringing Adam and then Rosie not being well, so rushing back to London. And so yeah, what a day of drama. I mean, luckily the baby was okay. But what about the farm? What you said you you saw it and you were like, this is it, this is the place. Why? It was quite ramshackle. It was just in a beautiful place. The rolling hills, heavily wooded, very hidden.

Sarah Raven30:01

And so

Sarah Raven30:05

Yeah.

Sarah Raven30:09

Why?

Presenter30:18

And Adam came a few days later, and we walked the fields, and it just felt right. It's a humble abode, but it had possibilities. And we had very little money at the time, and so we could only do bit by bit. And so, do you know what? We did the garden before we did the house. The farm evolved and came back to life bit by bit with you, and the family expanded too. You had your second daughter, Molly, and then it was when you were on maternity leave that you really started gardening. And the garden was just outside the kitchen. So, did that make a difference to what you grew?

Presenter30:52

I'd had hyperimesis gravidarum, you know, where you're very sick with pregnancy with Molly. So I'd actually been off for quite a long time. And we had the most adorable person helping us with the children because I was starting to set up my seed business. Outside the window, because I wanted to be near, I started doing these trial yard square patches of different plants. And I got six plants from my mother's garden, which were perennials like phlocks and heleniums and orangiums and euphobias. And I got from the Thompson and Morgan seed catalogue, actually, I got six annuals and I got two cosmos, a calendula, a marigold, a salvia, and I'd got some seed, in fact, in Greece when we'd been there of Cyrinthi, honeywort, and I grew that. So I had six and six, and I then, in a nerdy way, compared exactly what I harvested from each of these little squares. So that's quite a scientific approach to take, isn't it? Semi. I mean, what I wanted is that I was busy with a young family. I was obviously thinking I was going back to medicine and I needed efficiency.

Sarah Raven31:46

These little

Presenter31:59

And so I really wanted to pick, but I wanted to pick a lot from a little. So you said you'd started this little seed business from the kitchen table, which was as it sounds. It was measuring out packets of seeds and sending them off by mail order. Yeah. How did you come to do that? And at what point did you think, oh, actually, I'm not going to go back to medicine? I just was starting to experiment with cut flowers, basically. And then what happened is Adam went to a wedding and sat next to a publisher called Francis Lincoln.

Sarah Raven32:13

Yeah

Presenter32:28

She said, Oh, I gather you and your wife have recently moved to the country and is she giving up medicine or whatever? It came up in conversation. And he said, Well, actually, she has at the moment and she's growing cut flowers. And Francis said, That sounds really interesting. On Friday, I was asked by a German publisher to produce a book on growing cut flowers. Do you think Sarah wants to write it? And so he came out of the wedding and he said, I've got you a book commission. I was like, Well, hold on a minute. I've got two young children, three stepchildren. I'm going back to medicine, and now I don't want a book. I don't want a book commission.

Presenter33:00

Anyway, that was it. So I then wrote The Cutting Garden. Then the seed business grew out of that and teaching grew out of that and it all sort of spiralled in a gentle way. I mean I've been doing it now for over thirty years really. Obviously you were learning on the go. Did anything ever go wrong? Oh yeah, so many things went wrong. I remember incredibly well. I just decided to launch Dahlias. The next season I created this collection of three dark dahlias, these beautiful rich crimson dahlias, and the orders started coming in, pouring in and one day the postman came down the drive. Honestly, I could sort of cartoon postmen at Christmas with a big sack of orders. And we knew once we got to 200 that we'd only ordered 200 of these collections. So we then spent the rest of the day tearing up people's orders and checks and ringing every single person saying, I'm so sorry, but we can't take your order because we've run out of stock. So merchandising is a very important part of mail order, which is when you're a retailer, you have to buy from your wholesaler enough, otherwise it's a disaster.

Presenter34:03

Well Sarah, I can't wait to hear what happens next, but first I can't wait to hear your next disc. Number six, what is it? So my next one is another anthem. I'm slightly embarrassed about all these anthems, but it kind of is my life in that I work hard and then I love to party. This Andy Williams, which is Can't Take My Eyes Off of You, it just reminds me so much of Adam belting out on the dance floor.

Speaker 234:30

You're just too good to be true.

Speaker 234:33

Can't take my eyes off

Speaker 234:54

I love it.

Presenter34:57

Andy Williams and can't take my eyes off you. Sarah Raven, in 1996, you published your first book, The Cutting Garden. Now, your gardening is known for being innovative and daring in its use of strong colour: purples, crimsons, bright pinks, acid greens. At the launch party for that book, you filled a room two feet deep with autumn leaves. Where do your ideas and where does your inspiration come from? Oh, that was such a great party actually. The publishers, Francis Lincoln Sweetly, it was in the days of book launches, they said, Would you like to have one at this upstairs room at the Ivy? I said, Well, that's I'd love to, thank you. And I walked in and I was rather downcast because there was this really busy, swirly carpet. I was absolutely amazed. I went and said, Is it okay if I just cover it and just cover the whole thing with leaves? And they said, Yeah, that's fine. We started collecting leaves at Purchill, and once we got sort of three bags, we thought, Yeah, this is just not going to work. So, we then went to a park, and then, of course, you got to get them without horrible things in the leaves. And we arrived with all these brim bags and just strewed them out over the floor. And then it was just great. We didn't need any flowers. That was it. So, this inspiration then it can come from anywhere. Obviously, necessity was the mother of invention in that case. But, you know, when you describe flowers, when you talk about them, it's interesting that you often use metaphors that aren't connected to the natural world. So, you'll talk about boiled sweet colours or rich velvets. Yes, I think because I'm such a visual person and a colour addict, I really remember colour in an image. And then, when I'm looking at dahlias the following season, I'm suddenly like, Oh, yeah, I remember that crazy colour combination. I might try that. Or it may be fabric, or it may be a kind of a curtain or tapestry or a carpet, you know. But it's like all unusual things of the way they've been put together. So, as you say, your approach is quite unusual, your aesthetic is quite bold. I mean, particularly in the early days when you were new to everyone, I'm wondering how much resistance you came up against. One of the really notable failures in my career was I was writing a lot for the Telegraph at the time, and really sweetly, they commissioned me to do a garden at Chelsea. I had one of those massive Main Avenue sites, and I made this, I thought, incredibly beautiful garden. I bought a dry stone wall down from the west coast of Scotland, and I put bright turquoise mechanopsis next to GMs. And the RHS, I got a really bad medal. I mean, I can't even remember now. I didn't know there were bad medals. Well, I mean, I not gold.

Sarah Raven37:31

Yeah.

Presenter37:36

But to be honest, the Telegraph hadn't had a non-gold medal for many years. Oh, dear. So it was quite humiliating. And to be honest, I didn't mind for me as much as I minded for the team. Of course, someone bravely went and asked them why we'd done badly. They said it was that orange next to the turquoise that did it. And I just thought, well, if that's the reason, then I don't care because I loved the turquoise next to the orange. And I still do. Strong colour is just joy. And they couldn't see that. That must have been tough, especially when it was your first garden at such an esteemed event as the Chelsea Flower Show. It was a big rejection at the time. And I did feel I was a bit too childlike in that world of mainly men, still mainly men dominating garden design, to be honest. Not entirely as changing, but it's not changing nearly fast enough. It's still quite a conservative world, I'd say. But it didn't stop you being bold.

Sarah Raven37:40

Yeah.

Presenter38:31

It didn't. As Sister Scholastica and Sister Amadeus will tell you, I'm born a rebel.

Presenter38:37

Haughty and naughty, deal with it.

Speaker 238:38

Deal with it.

Presenter38:39

So you've often written about visiting other famous gardens, Claude Monnet's garden in Giveny in France. Do you see gardening as an art form? Oh yes, so much. But I'm a micro rather than a macro person. I like intimate small things. So a perfect window box or a perfect pot is something that I find more moving and more transporting than yew hedges, box shapes, chaupery, lawns. I think because I'm a botanist really. Gardening is a real pleasure for many people, but many people aren't lucky enough to have a garden, to have that outside space. For those who don't have that in their lives, what do you recommend to bring the benefits of gardening and nature into their life? I think balcony gardening is completely brilliant. I love houseplants, but I think they're quite difficult to look after. So for me, it would be herbs and cooking. So your kind of creative tying back into the seasons, tying back into the cut and come again thing. For me, if I lived on the hundredth floor, that's how I would do it.

Presenter39:44

But you've never lost the connection with your own garden on a personal level. I have heard that you are often seen nipping out into the garden in your nightie, last thing at night. I am. Not maybe so much last thing at night as first thing in the morning. So I have this big cardigan that I get up often before five in my nightie. And then I put this cardigan on. So even if a delivery man arrives, it's not embarrassing because you wouldn't know I have my nightie underneath it. And I put on my clogs or perhaps my wellies if it's wet and off I go. And then I'm picking, I'm making notes, I'm taking photos. I'm just looking, smelling, being in the place. You know, Adam and I were already talking about having nice slopey things for our mobile scooters for when we need to get around. And yeah, I don't know what I would do without that connection to the outside nature, the weather, the seasons. You need to feel it. Yeah.

Presenter40:46

Let's have some more music, Sarah Raven. Your seventh choice today, please. What are we going to hear next and why? So, this is a real family tune. And this is Rocket Man by Elton John, which is such an uncool thing. But within a few miles of that place that I described, where we saw this whole pasture of tulipa saxatlis in Crete, is a valley called the Amari Valley. And we go there on holiday every summer. We often go over the Panahiri, which is every village has its saint-name party date. And last time we were there, my now son-in-law, Liam Ashmore, we were there with these great friends, and there was Liam belching out this song over the whole valley. And it's a very happy picture in my mind.

Speaker 241:31

And I think it's gonna be a long, long time To touch down, brings me round again to find I'm not the man they think I am at home

Speaker 241:44

Our Rocky Man.

Speaker 241:48

Fucking mad

Speaker 241:50

Uh

Speaker 241:51

Use that very long.

Presenter42:00

Elton John and Rocketman. Sarah Raven, your garden is central to your life as a cook and a food writer and your home at Purchill Farm is home to not just flowers but also sheep and chickens and lots of wildlife including birds, bees and butterflies. Why was it important for Purchill to be both a farm and a place for wildlife? For all of us, biodiversity and looking after what our lives have been so enriched by is just absolutely pivotal. I just feel such a responsibility to spread the word and I do know that there is more spaces in gardens than there are in nature reserves and if we can all garden in a responsible way we can have the most incredible effect. We think of gardening perhaps as quite a solitary activity. It's closed off from the rest of the world but you see it as actually possibly a way to contribute to increasing biodiversity. We might think that we're separate to our neighbours but of course you're not if you're flying, you have no perception of the boundaries and also the good that's done or unfortunately the bad. I feel as a garden you know countryside is now a laboratory.

Sarah Raven42:15

Yeah.

Presenter43:13

Or in danger of being a laboratory, and you can walk through a wheat field without hearing a single buzz or a chirp of a bird. And as gardeners, we have that power. We are in control and leading what's going on in our own patch, but together we're a great force. What do you think your father would make of the garden that you've created at Purchill?

Presenter43:35

Yeah, I think he'd really love it. One of the reasons I got into Cut Flowers is when my father had his duodenal ulcer, I took a vase of flowers up to him on a Saturday morning every week, and that was one of the absolute key moments, I think, for me of getting into the micro, these little tiny literally like a sherry glass, with four or five little crocus or aconites or snowdrops in it. And it would g bring such light to his face, and he would enjoy that beauty so much for that week, and then the following week I could replace it.

Presenter44:08

You're off to the island in just a moment, Sarah Raven. So I wonder, as a plant expert, what kind of island you're hoping for? What are you imagining?

Presenter44:17

Well, am I allowed to sneak a few seeds in my pocket? I'm going to sow them into my hem and they're going to be Swiss chard seeds and no one will know and they may get a little damaged by the salt but I think they'll be fine depending on my mode of transport to the island. So I will start with some charred I think and maybe some parsley. And anyway so I need fresh water and so I need a stream and I want a beach without sand flies and I love fishing. One of my great pleasures in life is macro fishing off the west coast of Scotland bobbing up and down in a boat. But obviously I won't have a boat so I'm going to have to kind of make something. But I think I'll be quite good at that. I'm quite practical in a very impractical way so it will fall apart quite quickly but it'll be okay for a few days. So the practical side not too worrying. I wonder about the isolation because you know you're a twin and you've got a busy family life. I mean how are you with time on your own? Absolutely dreadful.

Presenter45:19

I'm working hard on it, and I'm definitely getting better. I wouldn't come and find me after a month'cause I think you'll find quite a r a rabid maniac.

Presenter45:30

I mean, maybe the dancing'll keep you going longer than you would imagine. Would you try and escape, do you think?

Sarah Raven45:32

Minutes.

Presenter45:35

Oh, I don't think I'd be very clever at that. It would all go wrong. I'm not sure. I might tr I would definitely try and make a raft to fish, and then maybe I would get caught on the tide and I would ye I would just think, okay, I'll go with it. All right, Sarah, one more track before we send you off to your desert island. Your final choice to day. What's it gonna be and why?

Presenter45:54

My dad loved Vivaldi, and my dad had very, very long fingers and quite long fingernails. And I remember so well him listening to The Four Seasons and just sort of striking the table with his nails to the rhythm of the music. Rosie, our eldest daughter, suggested that she would take us to the Albert Hall to hear Max Richter playing his new version of The Four Seasons. And I just feel it's a brilliant sort of combination with Adam, with the birds, my dad, my children, Petchill. It's the one on the island that would bring it all together. And you've chosen spring. Is that your favourite time of year in the garden? Yes, because not much has gone wrong by that point.

Presenter47:41

Max Richter and Spring One, performed by Daniel Hope with the Concerth House Orchestra Berlin, conducted by Andrei Derida.

Presenter47:48

So, Sarah, I'm going to send you away to the island now. I will give you the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and one other book of your choice to take with you. What are you going to go for?

Presenter47:58

I'm going to take The Flowers of Crete, which is a massive tome. It's by John Fielding and various others, and it's an amazing book. It just gets the majesty of Crete in every single one of the photographs. And I want to just start at the beginning and in the A's and get through to the Z's and imagine myself into Crete. And when I'm feeling sad, that will be where I can distract myself. Oh, absolutely. It's yours. You can also have a luxury item. What would you like?

Presenter48:28

I'm a home bird and I want linen sheets and a comfy bed and if I'm allowed it on top, a hottie, which is a hot water bottle, because I feel the cold very badly. Even on a desert island, sir? Yeah, well the thing is it gets very cold at night. Yeah, and my feet would be freezing. And then I wondered about whether I could convert it into a coldie, which is a word I've made up. But if I'm really hot, I could actually then fill it from the stream with cold water and then I could hug it. And the thing about me, I think maybe because of being a twin and obviously being in a womb with someone else, if I have a pet or a child or Adam or anyone and they're near to me, or I'm on my own but I've got a hottie, I'm asleep in five minutes. So you need that presence, that warm presence next to you. Oh well, I wouldn't deprive you of that. Thank you. And the linen sheets, linen a preference? And got to be quite crispy and got to be changed regularly.

Speaker 248:38

Please remember.

Sarah Raven49:13

Next.

Presenter49:23

And not washed in salt water, so they're too crunchy. Okay, I'm gonna have to give you a big old stack of bed linen. Right, fine. That's your luxury item, done. Finally, which one track of the eight danceable tunes that you've shared with us today would you rush to save from the waves first? Oh, so hard, so hard. But I think the one that makes me feel most joyful, and honestly, I didn't know what I was going to choose before saying this, but I think it would have to be Earth, Wind and Fire, because it's just joy in a record. If I was feeling lonely and down, which I will be a lot, this will make me dance and sort of transport me away.

Sarah Raven49:38

Yeah.

Presenter50:02

Sarah Raven, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you so much for having me. It's such an honour, and I've absolutely loved it.

Speaker 250:17

Yeah.

Presenter50:21

Hello, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Sarah. We'll leave her planting Swiss chard on the island and cuddling up with a hot or cold water bottle. We've cast away many gardeners and horticulturalists, including Monty Don, Anna Payvord, and Alan Titchmarsh. You can find these episodes in our Desert Island Discs programme archive and on BBC Sounds. The studio manager for today's programme was Jackie Marjoram, the assistant producer was Christine Pavlovsky, the production coordinator was Susie Roylands, and the producer was Mugabe Turia. Next time, my guest will be the musician Mark Knopfler. I do hope you'll join us.

Presenter51:05

From BBC Radio 4, John Holmes says the C word. I am John Holmes and last year I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Following surgery, I'm recovering just fine now, thanks for asking. But it's all been a bit weird. And I think it feels weird, not least because men don't really like talking about this stuff. So I've gathered together a load of other men who've been through it for brutally honest and yes funny conversations about all things cancer. Across the series we'll be hearing

Speaker 251:30

From, amongst many others, Stephen Fry. You saved my life. Oh my goodness. It's a wonderful thing to hear. Eric Idle. It's not the most desirable side effect, but it's funny. And the BBC's international editor, Jeremy Bowen. I took a dump on a newspaper. John Holmes says the C-word: listen on BBC Sounds.