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Julia McAuliffe
 
Helmdon Gardening Club


Garden Party 2002.
 
A few years after I moved to the village I became a member of a new Gardening Club which was started by Caroline King.

Helmdon has long had a good selection of clubs and groups for residents to take part in, but this new Club brought together a wide cross-section of villagers, young and old, male and female, providing interesting and entertaining talks, social events and outings.

For the first few years Caroline managed to organise lots of free or minimum-fee speakers to help get the Club off the ground. However this was not easy and she says that with precious little money in club funds they were difficult to get. One lead she followed up was to the Met Office, who although they were enthusiastic, couldn’t find anyone to come, then came, not some lowly employee, but Professor Paul Hardaker, at that time the Government’s adviser on Climate Change. This, adds Caroline, was the club’s first lecture/supper event and his visit was a real “scoop”. On another occasion the War Graves Commission provided a fee-free speaker and another great evening came about with a talk about compost by a Master Composter. There were also quizzes and other opportunities to share our gardening know-how and problems.


Visit to Hill House Gardens, Warwick, in 2011.
 
Caroline passed over the reins of the club to Clare Nash after a few years, once the Club was well-established and had more funds in the bank, and later I took over from Clare as Chair when she became too busy with her business. The Club continued, with some more professional speakers and some quickly established traditions such as an Annual Supper lecture and a Christmas party. The Supper lecture in particular was very popular, open to members and non- members alike and providing a very good speaker followed by a supper prepared by members of the committee. We had talks from such eminent gardeners as the Director of Oxford Botanic garden, Timothy Walker, and Geoff Hamilton’s son, Nick. The outings in the summer also proved popular and we visited the Oxford Botanic Garden, Barnsdale (Geoff Hamilton’s garden), Hill House
 

Peter delivering his gardening tips.
 
Gardens and the National Memorial Arboretum amongst other places. It was always quite a challenge to find good and varied speakers, but we were quite successful for a while. Another popular feature of the meetings was a topical tips item from long-term member Peter Payne. Having gardened in the village for very many years Peter was a mine of information about varieties to grow, when to sow and when to prune, and he usually had a funny story to tell. Indeed Caroline King recalls that his session at the end of every meeting was “one of the most engaging, humorous and knowledgeable ‘speakers’ the gardening club were lucky enough to have!”.

Unfortunately, as the years went on membership numbers began to fall off, and despite our best efforts we could not seem to attract new members from the younger generation, or other newcomers to the village. Several of our members also belonged to other groups and found it hard to commit to another evening out or day’s outing. This meant problems for our finances, and the potential embarrassment of organising a speaker and then having only a handful of people in the audience. The Committee therefore decided to wind up the club’s activities at the end of December 2017.


Flower & Produce Show 2011.
 
However, a number of years earlier the Gardening Club had helped to resurrect the Flower and Produce Show, which used to be held at the Village Carnival. I helped to get it started again in a revised format, and a little later it was taken over by Phillip Ward, since when it has gone from strength to strength. So the Gardening Club has left a little legacy in the form of the Show as well as many fond memories for those of us who were involved in some way.

Julia McAuliffe
2020
 
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