"Mike" wrote in message
...
Please please.

Not on your life. ;-)

:-))

I know 'just' what you mean. We had an International Entertainment Artist
in
the next Stateroom to ours on our recent cruise and it would be very
unethical to state a name and the content of our conversations.

Of course 'some people' would name drop, but sorry, having met very many
famous people in my time, that is not my cup of tea :-))

While I agree with your general point, it sounds like the gardener referred
to was "performing", and as such is fair game IMO.

--
Brian
"Fight like the Devil, die like a gentleman."

On Fri, 28 Apr 2006 6:06:15 +0100, Brian Watson wrote
(in message ):


"Sacha" wrote in message
ups.com...
In a trade mag. today " Seven months contract. Responsible for
maintaining and developing the BBC's flagship garden at Berryfields in
Warwickshire, you'll need to balance the demands of a hands-on
gardening role with the ability to manage a small off-screen team.

You mean the presenters don't really do all the planning and work they
pretend to do?

Gasp!

I must be a bit naive, or maybe I just like to think these people are for
real.

So, what this implies is- (correct me if I'm wrong)-

when I watch Gardener's World and I see these various tv gardeners apparently
all working quite hard to maintain the Berryfields garden and explaining what
they are doing for the benefit of the viewers, and the camera neatly moves
from one gardener doing one thing to another gardener doing another, it is
not only stage managed so that it all dovetails together fairlly neatly in
order to make it into a tv programme, BUT ALSO they are not really
maintaining the garden as they appear to be but are in fact PRETENDING and it
is really being done by others! It's all contrived and they are in fact
acting. Sorry, I need to say it in order to comprehend and believe it.....



--
VX (remove alcohol for email)

Janet Baraclough wrote:
The message .com
from "Sacha" contains these words:


I was looking at the Abbey Gardens site yesterday and saw that while
Mike Nelhams who is the Curator of the garden does many lecture tours,
as we knew, so does the Head Gardener *and* the Propagator does cruise
lectures. Obviously, these can be jobs with both more interest and
more lucrative interest than many of us had realised!

Hm.. they can certainly involve some interesting travel, (one I know
advises to China's botanical gardens, and cruise tours come to him and
his gardens - but according to him there's little money in it; he does
it for the love and is glad to break even. True, they get tied houses,
(usually in a beautiful place but invariably somewhat decrepit and
expensive to heat), but it means their home is hostage to employer,
health, and eventually, retirement. Unless they bought property before
the 80's price boom, there is little hope that the savings from such
modest wages will buy a place of their own on retirement; and highly
qualified undergardeners earning 12K have little chance of raising a
useful mortgage.

Obviously, I can't go into detail but I will say that of those I know
who do this as a 'sideline', I know that not only were they wise enough
to invest in their own property at the right time and let it, the tied
houses are really lovely in themselves.
Talking of the Tresco estate, it really is very well run and I think
it's fair to say that those employed there are extremely well treated
and have been given the opportunity to take part in the forward
planning, in the sense that they have been able to say whether they
want to stay on the island or leave it when they retire. If they opt
to stay, they're housed, even if they have to move out of the house
they occupied while working. Whether they do or don't pay rent, I
don't know.
In the case of another totally different location, the head gardener
and his wife who was housekeeper, were left the house they live in for
their lifetime, rent-free. After that, it reverts to the owners of the
main property.
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon

:-((

'Here's one I did earlier'

;-(

Mike

--
------------------------------------------------
Royal Naval Electrical Branch Association
www.rnshipmates.co.uk
International Festival of the Sea 28th June - 1st July 2007

VX wrote:
snip
I must be a bit naive, or maybe I just like to think these people are for
real.

So, what this implies is- (correct me if I'm wrong)-

when I watch Gardener's World and I see these various tv gardeners apparently
all working quite hard to maintain the Berryfields garden and explaining what
they are doing for the benefit of the viewers, and the camera neatly moves
from one gardener doing one thing to another gardener doing another, it is
not only stage managed so that it all dovetails together fairlly neatly in
order to make it into a tv programme, BUT ALSO they are not really
maintaining the garden as they appear to be but are in fact PRETENDING and it
is really being done by others! It's all contrived and they are in fact
acting. Sorry, I need to say it in order to comprehend and believe it.....


But of course they don't all do all the work! They probably know how
to do the work, they probably have quite a bit of input on the design -
or some of them do - but how CAN all of them work full time at
maintaining the Berryfields garden and be paid by the BBC, a
notoriously ungenerous employer? All of them have other jobs or
businesses, Carol Klein has a nursery in Devon and a small garden open
to the public, for example. Joe Swift is a garden designer and he won't
make a living out of doing that for the Beeb alone! They write books
and make personal appearances. Charlie Dimmock has a page in one of
the nationals every week but I don't suppose for a second that she
actually constructs every water feature she advises upon. But to call
it acting is, I think, a bit strong. They ARE gardening people, they
do make their living through gardening and plants. If you mean they
don't dig over every border and bed, no of course they don't. They're
not jobbing gardeners. They've been given their jobs because they are
considered to be good at presenting garden information to a widely
differing-in-experience audience. Interior designers may make a
beautiful job of designing someone's home but they don't slap the
paint on the wall themselves.
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon