The house next door had stood empty for many months and the weeds in the overgrown garden were spreading into my flower borders, becoming a nuisance. I’d taken early retirement when Jack became too il

WOULD you look at the man!” Maggie said. She wasn’t much to look at herself, being as black as sin from the coal dust. She’d just finished a shift at the colliery screens, picking lumps of coal out of

Julie stared out of the window at her garden, mostly bare branches with only a few spots of colour in the deep red of the dogwood and silver cineraria. She sighed – it was that unsettling period after

I’m the same age as my mum and dad were when our family moved in next door to Mrs. Dolan. They seemed old to me back then, but I know now that they weren’t. They were a young couple at the beginning o

It took Sarah Biddulph a while to work up to tackling the long borders at Rodmarton Manor. Not just because of their sheer size, but also because they are the centrepiece of an Arts & Crafts garden th

I WOKE up after a vivid dream of Eleanor. I’d had quite a few recently. Eleanor was my half-sister. She was older than me – the daughter of Dad’s first wife, Dorrie. My mum only found out he had a fir