The high-octane karate kid who is shaking up RHS Shows on her life as bouncer, staying calm in a crisis and engaging children and new entrants to gardening
WORDS AMBRA EDWARDS PORTRAIT ANDREW MONTGOMERY
Helena Pettit is the kind of woman who makes ordinary mortals seem a tad underpowered. For a spot of relaxation after a busy show season, she chooses a 100km kayak trip up the coast of Norway, beaching her craft and wild camping by night. Her garden in Kent, she confesses, is often a little neglected, as she spends so many weekends away, hiking with a band of equally energetic and outdoorsy friends. She is a second degree Dan black belt in Kyokushinkai karate – retired, she hastens to point out, although she used to fight for the Great Britain squad in her youth (she says it wistfully, although she is only in her forties – a mere stripling in the world of gardening). She has faced off attackers in dodgy nightclubs (no doubt in high heels – Helena is exceptionally glamorous), and trekked through the Andes in Peru. Yet she considers herself the least adventurous in her family: her brother ran off at 17 to join the French Foreign Legion.
Her mum, who disapproved of all that fighting, is delighted to see her tomboy daughter end up with a nice ladylike job – first as director of shows at the RHS, then in 2020 adding the Society’s five gardens and retail to her portfolio. She is shortly to hand over responsibility for the gardens as she takes on a new role, as director of commercial and innovation, and can barely contain her anticipation.
“The opportunities for doing new things are so exciting. At a certain level, you see things that people don’t always see when they are so closely involved with the subject matter, so you can spot the opportunities, perhaps because you are not so wedded to the ways that things have always been done. And once I see a new direction, I really enjoy investigating what it could bring to support the RHS. It’s great to embrace change: I believe, where there’s a will there’s a way.”
Helena has always had a prodigious energy. Her first job was working for champagne house Moët & Chandon by day, while working as a bouncer and teaching karate by night. She went on to build a career in marketing and event planning, working in a variety of sporting arenas from motor sport to the Horse of the Year Show. For a decade she ran the Grandstand Group, whose interests included NAEC Stoneleigh, the Warwickshire showground famous as the site of the former Royal Show and more recently various other agricultural shows. (There are, it turns out, an extraordinary nu
