Digging for victory

For almost 30 years, Valerie Finnis was a distinguished and charismatic teacher at the Waterperry Horticultural school for Women, near Oxford, founded in 1932 by the fearsomely smocked and gaitered Be

I PULLED back the living-room curtains and stopped singing along to the radio, frozen to the spot. How could this be? It was a beautiful morning. The sun was shining, the birds had been singing up a s

When summer beckons, it is answered by a chorus of glorious roses that fill an enchanting Isle of Wight garden, created from scratch by Derek and Louise Ness

IT had been a long, hard drive. Frances had left early, hoping to get away before the rush hour – only to discover that the rush hour started earlier still. She stopped for a break further south than

I’D seen an advertisement in my father’s newspaper for women to work on the canal boats. It said applicants should be of a robust constitution. I’m quite robust, so why not? I’d give it a go. “Look, D

IT being the season for the painted purple ...