Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A popular broadcaster who helped with gardening problems on the air and on television.
On the island
Eight records
It would remind me of Sunday at home and I should know the days of the week.
Picture all those monks toiling but able to see flowers grow — brightens their lives.
I can always picture a rose in his buttonhole when I hear this song.
It was the melody running like a thread through a play, stuck in my mind all these years.
Something about green pastures — I used to like them.
Nothing like it in the world — see those old Sussex plodders march to it.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:40Alfred, how do you face up to this idea of being on a desert island?
Well, you know, I'm really going to love it. Oh, I think it's a new adventure for me, and uh I shall look forward to laying this island out, just as an island should be laid out. With all the new tropical stuff, I should be that interested and uh you know I shan't know either time goes at all. … Oh, yes, it'll be a new life for me altogether.
Presenter asks
1:31Why do you choose this [The Holy City]?
Well, because uh it would remind me of Sunday at home and uh I should know the days of the week and I'd put a stone down to say that it was Sunday because I shouldn't lose camp at times, see, I should be working all day.
Presenter asks
2:52How did you get the idea of being a gardener, and was your father a gardener?
Uh no, but he he was uh you know used to work on the land, always interested in the land. … I started at the age of two. … I'm one of those chaps that as soon as my mind's made up, well, then I'm going straight for it.
The keepsakes
The book
Not recorded.
The luxury
orchids and all fancy stuff that uh would make these other fellows jealous from the Chelsea show and that.
Presenter asks
When did you first start broadcasting, Fred?
Well, it was in mister Middleton time. He he asked me to come up and have a go, and that was the start of it. … I've been on ever since.
Presenter asks
7:22You've never studied for horticultural degrees or diplomas or anything like that, have you, Fred?
Uh diplomas doesn't mean anything to me, you know. Uh I'd rather grow a plant and see the plant growing and talk to it and, you know, feel that you're living with it. I uh that that's my life.
Presenter asks
10:22How are you going to manage [on the island] in a practical sense? You're going to be able to look after yourself?
Uh yes, I can manage that, because uh all young gardeners, you know, they have to manage. And they have to do a bit of cooking and cleaning up, make the beds and do the washing and all that. … I should grow vegetables and salads and live on them and I should be perfectly happy.
“And you know, I never had anything to do with girls at all, not till I met her. I was out for a walk one Sunday afternoon and she I saw this flash young lady, blue eyes, uh fair hair, you know, dog and a bicycle and I took over the bike, pushed the bike out, asked her if she was engaged, she said no. I said, When can I meet you again? Well, we got married uh four years after and uh we haven't had our honeymoon yet.”
“Uh diplomas doesn't mean anything to me, you know. Uh I'd rather grow a plant and see the plant growing and talk to it and, you know, feel that you're living with it. I uh that that's my life.”
“No, I'm I can't drive a nail in. Do you know when I got married, the first thing my wife asked me was to put up a shelf in the scullery to put the saucepans on. Well, you know, I put the shelf up, the first saucepan was put up, come down. Now I've never been asked to put up a shelf since. … I can't drive a nail straight. I'm no use to that at all.”