Take yourself back to the Britain of 100 years ago. Barely recovered from a brutal war that took the lives of millions and traumatised as many, the nation was nevertheless in the midst of a peculiar kind of social revolution.
For there were no protests in the street, no placard-waving crowds calling for social justice. There was, though, amarch of another kind by a new army with a very different purpose. At the front of its columns came the privet hedge, the standard and tea rose, followed by petunias, pansies, pinks, dahlias, daffodils, geraniums, sunflowers, hollyhocks, poppy, nasturtium, lupin, lavatera, polyanthus, antirrhinums and asters. In the rear were potatoes, cabbages, onions, turnips, parsnips, carrots, like the Webb’s standard, and the odd apple and ‘Morello’ cherry tree. Across the country in…
