There was no way that 1993 could have been described as a good year for me. My father had died in February and I had been struggling to make ends meet since then. Basically he had left nothing by way of an estate except a large mortgage and a pile of credit card debts. I was nineteen and in my first year at university doing a history degree and not particularly enjoying it. I hardly had enough cash to pay my rent and food, never mind leading a student life of beer and night-clubs and all the other stuff that might have made this the best time of my life. I hadn't distinguished myself on the battlefield of the _s_e_x_es; in fact I wasn't sure that I was attractive, or indeed attracted to anyone, girls or boys, and all of my _s_e_x_ual adventures had been conducted in the solitary confines of my own mind. My social life certainly wasn't helped that I wasn't very tall, only 5' 6" and I was frequently refused service in bars by zealous staff who insisted that I couldn't possibly be over eighteen Then, to cap it all, it was pretty obvious that I wasn't any good at history and was going to fail my first year exams in high style.
There really was no dilemma involved. I would just have to cut my losses, drop out of this course and get a job. And that's why I found myself talking things through with my tutor and explaining my decision. It would have been nice if he had disagreed with me and told me that I was better at history than I thought. But he was far too honest for that and he simply said that it was clear that I wasn't getting much out of the course. Then he asked the question that changed my life. Had I thought of something else that I would prefer to do?
I told him that I had always been happiest doing things in my parent's garden. Even mowing the lawn hadn't been a chore for me as I had enjoyed it too much. I loved wandering around parks and studying the planting arrangements and I was especially keen on large formal gardens. So I figured that some sort of gardening job would be the best thing for me to try, at least for a year or two until I found my feet. And then he told me that years ago he had known a guy who was the head gardener on a large country estate down south, somewhere around Devon. Should he try to get in contact again and see if his old friend might be able to help me? I had nothing to lose and lots to gain so I agreed and we left it at that for a few days. If I had known then what I know now I would have seen something else in my tutor's gentle smile as he shook my hand.
Anyway, for better or for worse I found myself entering into correspondence with this gardener friend, telling him about myself and why I was interested in taking a job in gardening. This gardener was indeed the head gardener on an estate of over six thousand acres belonging to some lord or other who spent most of his life snorting cocaine on Caribbean islands. Mr Griffiths, the gardener, said that he was looking for an apprentice as his last one had completed his training. The apprenticeship would be for a traditional four year period and if I performed satisfactorily at an interview he would offer me the position. It was all so perfectly above board and I agreed to meet him at a hotel in London. He was a tall bloke, at least 6' 2", and I felt very small standing beside him when we first met; but then I felt pretty short most of the time. We had a long conversation, over two hours, about gardening and what I knew and hoped for. Then he offered me the apprenticeship and maybe it was the relief and joy of the moment that meant that I didn't really understand the terms and conditions on offer until a bit later.
You see, he explained that the estate had a very large formal garden and it was quite old. The formal structure and layout was completed in the 1930s and the garden was run on organic principles and on the basis that the task was one of maintenance rather than development. Which basically means that all of the gardening was done exactly as it was in the first half of the twentieth century. The owner of the estate, who was rarely if ever there, was extremely conservative despite his recreational preferences, and insisted that there should be no change whatsoever in either the house or the estate. So what was on offer was exactly the sort of apprenticeship that would have been offered in the 1930s. I would be expected to sign articles, to accept that the work involved a strong commitment and was highly disciplined. I would, like any apprentice, be offered board, lodging, and clothing, but there would be no other wages. The estate itself was quite remote and on the whole, during the four year term, I would have little opportunity to travel much. In return, I would, however, receive one of the most thorough trainings available and that staff from the estate were guaranteed employment as it was widely known that they were the best available.
Reader, you are probably ahead of me at this point. You will already picked up the forthcoming sense of doom and you will have guessed what I had not. When I arrived at the estate on a warm day in late May I had no real sense of how all of these arrangements would be made very, very real. I had signed my articles, committed myself for four years according to the terms. I had got rid of most of my stuff, there wasn't much anyway, closed my bank account and treated myself to a last night on the town, and then set off on the long journey down to Devon. Mr Griffiths met me at the station and we took a taxi up to the estate where I had my first impressive view of the place that would be my home for the next few years. I was delighted and enchanted, and then we went into the head gardener's lodge where I would have a room. We were hardly in the door than Mr Griffiths suggested that, 'we might as well start as we mean to go on'.
He told me that my apprentice's uniform was up in my room and that I should change into it immediately. He showed me upstairs and said that I should only wear the clothes that were laid out, and that I should come downstairs for tea within ten minutes. I went into the little bedroom and was immediately charmed. It was a pleasant room with sloping walls under the roof, a window that looked onto the large walled vegetable gardens and orchards. The bed looked a bit small but reasonably cosy. Not a luxurious room, but a very pleasant one, a lot nicer than my inner-city student bedsit, and I figured that I would like living here very much.
I had my travelling clothes of jeans, shirt, and runners, off and scattered on the floor, before I registered the full horror of the clothes laid out on the bed before me. A brown and grey tweed sports jacket was laid on top of what seemed to be a long-sleeved dark green polo shirt. And that in turn was on top of the most horrifying garment of all. I had never worn pants like these, not even in primary school, but I had seen the photographs of earlier days, I had seen the illustrations in Enid Blyton books of children's adventures, I had even seen the occasional preparatory schoolboy in uniform. And all of these should have prepared me for the fact that a young apprentice gardener in the 1930s would probably have worn grey flannel short pants. The pair I held in my hands for the first time that evening were particularly short and very traditional looking.
I sat on the edge of the bed, buried my face into my hands, and wept at the sudden realisation of just how much of my life I had signed away for the next four years. I couldn't imagine any form of escape and I suppose it was the lack of choice that meant that I was able to recover some sort of composure within a few minutes. There was really nothing else to do so I decided that I would just have to accept my fate. I got dressed.
As well as the jacket, shirt, and shorts, there was a pair of white trunk-style underpants, and a pair of grey socks. I was dressed pretty quickly, but all the same I heard Mr Griffiths calling for me. I looked down at my bare knees and shrugged my shoulders. If this really was the uniform to be worn by apprentices around here then I guessed that I would be nearly twenty-four before my legs would be fully covered again. I pulled up the socks and folded them over just under my knees. Yes, everything was as authentically traditional as one might have expected. Even the socks were full grey knee-length with a dark green stripe at the top. I braced myself, took a deep breath, and went downstairs to meet my employer, my boss, indeed quite literally, my master.
It must seem strange that I didn't think to just take my own clothes, so much more appropriate in my mind for a nineteen year old in the mid 1990s, and make a run for it. It would have been so simple to have decided that this was too bizarre and extreme and that I would be better off to make my escape as quickly as I could. But somehow I really didn't think that I had any options. I had signed the articles, a binding contract, and I didn't have anywhere else to go. I felt really stupid in this uniform. It made me feel as if I was just a little boy, subject to the whims and orders of my adult superiors. Perhaps that was exactly the type of thing that I was meant to feel because instead of rebelling against the uniform, the short pants made me feel even smaller and submissive. Some sort of internal rule, perhaps an instinct inherited from previous generations, told me that boys wore shorts. And if I was wearing grey short pants then I must be a boy, and if I was a boy I should be well-behaved and obedient.
By the time I reached the kitchen I no longer felt that I was a man of nineteen years, only a couple of months short of his twentieth birthday. I was no longer living in 1993. Instead I was a fourteen year old boy about to begin his apprenticeship in the 1930s. And just to reinforce the feeling, there was Mr Griffiths, my master, standing in the middle of the kitchen and glaring at me.
'Young man', he spat, 'you must learn that when I tell you to do something within ten minutes you will do it. You will not waste half an hour of my time with your dawdling and escape the appropriate punishment'.
I had a deep sense that I knew exactly what was going to happen next.
'Hanging behind the door', he continued, 'you will find an old belt that has dealt with many little boys like you who have been disobedient or failed in their duties. It is your belt now. Go and fetch it'.
It was indeed an ancient looking belt; quite long and made of thick brown leather. I took it down from its hook with a sense of deep respect. This belt and I were going to have a long and enduring relationship. Even at that point, when I knew just how much trouble I had let myself in for, I couldn't bring myself to run away. The shorts were almost speaking to me. 'You are a little boy now, you have been disobedient, you must be punished.'
I handed the belt to Mr Griffiths. He looked me in the eye and said, 'I think you already know what to do next'.
I turned around, dropped my shorts and underpants, and bent over to grab my ankles.
With the first whack I was in tears. My true apprenticeship had begun.