real life
Devastated by her sister’s sudden death, Victoria Bennett found hope again by creating a wild apothecary garden
Author Victoria Bennett was seven months pregnant when she received news that her big sister had drowned in a canoeing accident.
Shocked and scared, a swift kick in the ribs from her unborn baby was a reminder that life continues and she must be strong. “How am I supposed to do this?” Victoria (now 52) asked. Barely able to even breathe, her life changed in that moment.
“No-one wants to hear about death so close to birth,” adds Victoria who went into labour with her only son weeks later.
“Either of those things was overwhelming. Put together they’re really overwhelming and I found it very difficult to believe in anything. It made no sense and there wasn’t much chance to come up for air,” she admits.
The youngest of six children, Victoria had experienced a nomadic childhood. Her engineer father’s career had taken the family around the world and she had been especially close to her older sister.
She hadn’t expected to be amum at 36
And after three miscarriages, she hadn’t expected to be amum at 36.
Five years later, Victoria was still struggling, but not just with the deep grief over her sister’s death. She’d also lost a sister-in-law who was in her 40s to lung cancer. Her home-schooled son had been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes aged two and Victoria was his carer and teacher as well as being his mum. Financial circumstances had forced her and her artist husband, Adam (52), to move with their little boy into a social housing estate in Cumbria.
There, on an adjoining former industrial site, she and her son found themselves digging together and soon had a plan to transform the rubble into a garden. With no money to buy plants they had to rely on weeds that thrive in poor, rocky soil.
