Knave of Spades: Growing Pains of a Gardener

Knave of Spades: Growing Pains of a Gardener

by Alan Titchmarsh (Author)

Synopsis

When Alan left school at fifteen little was expected of him. An 'O' level in art is not the most obvious passport to success, but in the ancient greenhouses of the local nursery Mrs T's little lad found his spiritual home, learning his trade and the strange ways of human nature. But the comfort and familiarity of his home in the Yorkshire Dales would soon be left behind as he journeyed south to college and then to Kew Gardens where he encountered rare plants collected by Captain Cook and a varied assortment of eccentrics in the world's most famous garden. Spells as a teacher and editor followed, until fate took a hand when he landed a job on BBC's Nationwide as their gardening presenter. His childhood dream of inheriting the mantle of gardening god Percy Thrower was beginning to come true...From the first faltering steps in radio and television, to a career in broadcasting and writing, Knave of Spades is a wonderfully warm and self-deprecatingly honest memoir. Alan Titchmarsh shows us just why he has become not only our favourite gardener, but a popular writer and broadcaster too.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 320
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 17 Sep 2009

ISBN 10: 0340953055
ISBN 13: 9780340953051
Book Overview: In this warm, funny memoir Alan Titchmarsh takes us from gardener's apprentice to favourite TV presenter.

Media Reviews
Praise for NOBBUT A LAD: 'A gentle exercise in nostalgia.' * Financial Times *
Filled with beautifully textured, wonderfully astute observations on the characters that peopled his childhood in the Fifties... very much an anti-misery memoir. * Daily Express *
Britain's favourite TV presenter recalls his happy childhood in '50s Yorkshire. With a great eye for detail, he paints an affectionate portrait of a bygone era. * Woman & Home *
Author Bio
Alan Titchmarsh is known to millions through the popular BBC TV programmes British Isles: A Natural History, How to be a Gardener, Ground Force and Gardeners' World. He has written more than forty gardening books, as well as seven best-selling novels and his first 2 volumes of memoirs Trowel and Error and Nobbut a Lad. He was made MBE in the millennium New Year Honours list and holds the Victoria Medal of Honour, the Royal Horticultural Society's highest award. He lives with his wife and a menagerie of animals in Hampshire where he gardens organically.