by Terry Walton
Another time we were picking sweetcorn. I knew I’d have to pick a ripe cob, peel it and describe it. I thought I could talk while doing that, and jammed the phone in behind a corn cob next to the one I was going to pick.
So I went through all this rigmarole about finding and testing a ripe cob, picking and peeling it and everything else. What I didn’t realize was that when I’d fixed the phone in position I had pressed the hold button.
All that our millions of listeners could hear on air was Jeremy’s voice calling, ‘Terry? Can’t hear you, Terry. Where are you, Terry? Oh dear, we seem to have lost Terry!’
When I finished describing what I was doing, I picked up the phone and found it was on hold. I switched it back to live and said, ‘Jeremy, you cut me off! What’s happening there in the studio?’ That surely must have proved the show was live.
Just before the General Election in 2005 Jeremy visited Scotland, Manchester and Cardiff in sequence for an election special, and while in Wales he came over to broadcast from the allotments. This was one of the few times the programme wasn’t going straight out on the air: he had been in Manchester live on Thursday lunchtime, and then travelled down to get here early in the evening and record stuff to fit into his live Friday show from Cardiff.
We prepared a little surprise that evening. Down the side of the path were all my strawberries – lovely-looking plants, but not yet fruiting as it was still too early in May. So I rang up my son, who was coming with the rest of the family to meet Jeremy, and said, ‘Do me a favour now. Call into Tesco’s for me and pick up a punnet of strawberries.’ When he brought them, I laid out all the fruits realistically on the plants.
They caught Jeremy’s eye as soon as he arrived and started to look around. I said, ‘Help yourself, they always crop early in the valleys.’ But as he went to pick one, it rolled off the leaf and he realized at the last minute they weren’t my own crop. ‘You nearly had me there, Terry,’ he said. Then he walked round the plot happily munching them while doing the commentary.
The four candidates for the Rhondda – Labour, Conservative, Plaid Cymru and Liberal Democrat – were invited to meet Jeremy here that evening for a political discussion. I remember it was a terrible night and pouring with rain while all four were standing on my plot. Jeremy pressed them on general party politics first of all, and then suddenly he brought them to a stop by saying, ‘Now, if you got elected, what would you do for this allotment in the Rhondda?’ Some were on the ball and gave useful answers – one was quick enough to say that tending an allotment fell in line with his party policy of a better, fitter society – but others were completely floored because the question was well outside their remit.
Broadcasts from the plot are always completely impromptu, although we have a little chat beforehand about the content. One spring I was growing salsify for the first time to give listeners an idea of how to do it. About three weeks after I’d sown it we were on air and Jeremy suddenly asked, ‘Is the salsify coming yet, Terry?’
‘I dunno,’ I said. ‘We’ll walk down and have a look.’ So I talked my way down the path, and then said, ‘Hang on, I’m going to run the phone over it now and see if it’s up.’ And I went back and forth over the ground with the phone, and said, ‘Can you spot any of it yet?’ (This is all make-believe: we pretend that the phone can see.)
‘I don’t even know what it looks like,’ he protested, and I said, ‘Well, neither do I, so that makes two of us!’
One November we had a very heavy fall of early snow. We’d planned the broadcast between us on the Wednesday, but by the time I went up on Friday morning there was a good 4 in (10 cm) of snow, and I had a devil of a job actually getting to the plot. And of course, when it snows everything ends up looking the same.
Anyway, once we were on air Jeremy asked, ‘So what are we going to do today?’
I said, ‘We’re a bit stuck actually, because all I can see is one big white blanket of snow.’
So he said, ‘Well, is the pond all right?’ When I told him I couldn’t even see it, he suggested we went to have a look. ‘This is just a trick to get your own back for the strawberries, isn’t it?’ I said.
‘I remember exactly where the pond is. Walk down the path, turn left at the bottom and then start to walk towards it,’ he told me. ‘Can you see it?’
‘No, I can’t see it.’
‘Well, keep walking.’
‘If I keep walking, I’ll end up falling in.’
I went gently forward, tapping the snow and waving my mobile around like a camera as I described the scene for the listener, until I finally felt the edge of the pond ahead. I made loud crunching and splashing sounds, and said, ‘Smack! I’ve found the pond now, Jeremy, but I haven’t fallen in it.’
These stunts are all important on radio to fix the scene in the mind, and each programme needs at least two or three topics like this with live noise when you’re describing what is actually happening here on an allotment through a mobile phone.
The programme evolved, because we had to think of something different all the time to maintain interest. The first year was straightforward as I was describing the things I do in a normal year, if there is such a thing. Later we started to go out to other people’s gardens on a few occasions.
During 2004 we had a chap ring in to say that his front lawn had become all undulated, and when he walked across the turf it was really spongy and soft. He thought he had voles, but I suspected a mole as I couldn’t see voles producing that kind of major disturbance.
‘Surely you’ve got tell-tale mounds of earth, the classic little hills a mole makes?’ I said.
‘No,’ he replied, ‘there’s no sign of earth whatsoever, which is why I think it’s a vole. I’ve tried trapping them, I’ve tried this and I’ve tried that, but I can’t seem to get rid of them.’
I said, ‘Right, tell me where you live and I’ll come over and have a look at the problem first-hand.’ He was only about fifteen miles away, so we decided to do the next show from his front garden.
A fortnight later I turned up there, met Gwyn and his wife, and drank copious amounts of coffee. Gwyn had Anthea’s mobile and I had mine, so we could have a three-way conversation on air.
Jeremy said, ‘Have you looked at Gwyn’s problem? What do you think it is?’
‘I’ve looked at it and I agree with him, there are no molehills,’ I said. ‘But my diagnosis is still a mole, because across the road from where he lives there’s a large field, and in there are literally hundreds of molehills. So somewhere along the line one of these moles has ventured across the road and settled in here without leaving its usual evidence.’
‘So what are we going to do about it?’
‘I’ve got my trusty spade with me,’ I said, ‘and one way to get rid of a mole is to make plenty of noise. You have to keep on slapping the lawn with the back of your spade.’ And I started doing that to make convincing sounds over the radio.
‘Right-ho,’ he said, ‘we’re going to play some music now while you carry on.’ I was still patting away when he came back after the record and asked, ‘Have you found the mole yet?’
I said, ‘No, but by now he’s got a thumping headache and has probably disappeared.’ Gwyn was in the background, adding his own comments. We finished the show there, and about two months later a follow-up revealed that the mole had gone, so we seemed to have solved that problem.
During the summer a guy from Swansea rang in and said, ‘I have a large bungalow with a front and back garden. I’ve got runner beans growing in the front and they’re absolutely wonderful, and I’ve got them growing in the back but those are all yellow and shrivelled. Can you help me?’
I said, ‘It sounds like you’ve got two different kinds of soil for a start. What have you done to the back that you haven’t done out the front?’
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I dug manure into both of them.’
‘Where did you get this manure?’
‘From the stables.’
‘Were the horses kept on hay or wood shavings?’
‘Hay, I think.’
‘Well, have you sprayed the beans in the back with some insecticide …?’
And so on. We went through all the possible diagnoses on the programme, but the answer he kept giving me was no, no, no.
Finally I said, ‘Well, I can’t really fathom out why one lot in the front of the bungalow are different from those in the back, unless perhaps you’ve got a wind tunnel exposing and scorching the plants, whereas the others are protected.’
‘No.’
‘Right,’ I said, ‘I’ll come and sort it out.’
A fortnight later I went over, opened his front gate, and there’s this wonderful green and scarlet wall of flowers and fine green beans hanging everywhere; walk round the back of the bungalow and there’s a large piece of ground with these crumbly brown apologies for runner beans in the middle.
So I said to Jeremy on the phone, ‘Can you hear that?’ I rubbed the foliage. Good runner bean foliage is silent or just audible whereas the leaves on a dying runner bean are crisp and noisy.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘what is it?’
I said, ‘That’s the sound of a happy runner bean. Now follow me,’ and I walked round to the back where I made this loud scrunching noise. ‘That’s the sound of a dying runner bean.’
‘Oh, right,’ he said, ‘so what’s the problem?’
I had my pH meter with me, so I could measure whether the soil was acid or alkaline, and by how much (every plant has its preferred level of acidity, otherwise it becomes sick). I said I’d try the front first and that I was looking for a reading of 6.5–7.0, the ideal range for runner beans. I pushed the probe into the soil, and it said exactly 6.5. So the soil in the front was perfect.
I went round to the back and stuck the probe in the bed: 4.0!
I said, ‘Well, for a start this soil is extremely acid and beans really don’t like that. But while I was scrabbling round trying to push in the pH meter, I noticed there’s all these wood shavings mixed in the soil. He’s dug manure into the back garden which has come from a stable where the horse has been kept on wood shavings. What’s happening is that, as the shavings are breaking down, they’re exhausting the nitrogen in the soil and starving the beans.’ So that’s how that problem was resolved.
I’ve never claimed to know all the answers, though – you’d be an exceptional gardener if you had every solution at your fingertips, every plant disease that exists and the reason why certain things don’t grow in certain areas. I’ve never considered myself to be an expert (a term I define as a combination of ‘ex’, someone who’s past it, and ‘spurt’, a drip under pressure) and would rather describe myself as a practical gardener with fifty years’ experience.
If I get a question on the programme that beats me, I’ll always say so or try to give a humorous reply instead, which has probably added a slightly offbeat or unpredictable element to the show. For example, we had a call from a listener in Bournemouth who had a problem with his fruit. He had some raspberries and gave me their names, and a row of blackcurrants, which were growing away extremely well. But he had a new cherry with a long name that ended ‘something van something’. ‘I’ve looked everywhere,’ he said, ‘but I can’t understand what this term “van” applies to. Can you tell me what it means?’
I said, ‘Yes, that’s what it was delivered in,’ and then I gave a chuckle and added, ‘But I don’t really know.’
Sometimes it’s simply impossible to give an answer on air, if you’re miles from the evidence. A guy rang in once to say his leeks had all died, and asked what had gone wrong. I replied that it was a bit difficult, standing at the end of my mobile on an allotment in the Rhondda, to diagnose exactly why his leeks had died somewhere far from here. So I explained to him how I grow leeks, and then said, ‘If you follow this system, they’ll grow quite well here in the Rhondda. All I can suggest is that you try this next year, and if it doesn’t work, move.’
In 2004 Jeremy thought we’d try growing something different, and one of the new crops was pak choi. He followed its progress as it was sown, came up, went out into the open ground and started growing quite well. Then I came on the show and said, ‘Problem, Jeremy. I’ve got masses of little yellow flowers on the pak choi. It’s obviously gone to seed, and that’s the end of that. What are we going to do now?’
‘Tell you what,’ he said, ‘we’ll ask our listeners if anyone can help.’
The next time we were on, he’d had a call from someone called Winston, who sounded Caribbean. Jeremy said, ‘I’ve got the expert on the other end of the line, Terry, and he’s going to help you solve the problem with your pak choi for the future.’
I said, ‘Hiya, Winston, how are you?’
Long silence. Then, ‘Hi, Terry, how are you?’
‘I’m fine,’ I said, ‘I gather you’re the expert on pak choi?’
Another silence, and then, ‘Yes.’
I said, ‘Well, what do you do then?’
‘Well, man,’ he said, ‘my son lives in Antigua, and every year in January he sends me over some Antiguan pak choi seed. I’m gardening in the south-east and I plant these seeds on my allotment down there, and they come up well.’
‘I’ve done that, and they come up and always look really healthy, and then they go to seed. How do you stop them going to seed?’ I asked him, expecting a simple solution.
‘You don’t, man. They’re so used to growing in the Caribbean,’ he said, ‘that mine go to seed in this country as well. I’ve got the same problem as you!’
Things don’t always go to plan on the programme because Jeremy has a strong tendency to go off at a tangent, which keeps everyone on their toes. He likes the show to be spontaneous, and most of the time I haven’t got a clue what’s coming next. And then you really are thinking on your feet.
I wasn’t due to be on the show at all the week that Charles and Camilla got married, for example. As the event was particularly topical, they had decided to focus on that. First thing on the Friday morning before the wedding, right out of the blue, I had a call from the studio asking if I’d be available to add a comment. ‘Think of something not too controversial,’ they said.
So there I was, up at the allotments and listening to the show on my car radio. Various people from different Commonwealth countries were all giving their opinions about the wedding, and then Jeremy said, ‘As Charles is Prince of Wales, we’re now going to our adopted allotment in the Rhondda valley for the Welsh perspective. So, Terry, what do you think about this wedding?’
I said, ‘Well, I’m quite happy for them at the end of the day, and he obviously seems very fond of Camilla. I’m certain she’s got a hard act to follow, coming after Princess Diana who’s in the heart of the country as well as the heart of the people of Wales. But she was a different character. Provided Charles and Camilla warm to the people and show them what they’re like as a couple, I’m sure the people will warm to them.’
My contribution to Jeremy’s programme is usually the last ten minutes of the Friday show, a kind of light-hearted wind-down into the weekend after the previous fifty minutes of serious discussion. Jeremy gets all kinds of guests in the earlier part of the show and, depending on who’s preceding me, there’s often some kind of overlap and interaction.
Someone I work extremely well with is Clarissa Dickson-Wright from the Two Fat Ladies series. She can be very outspoken, especially on topics like fox-hunting, supermarkets and green issues, and she’s strongly in favour of organic allotment growing, so she usually wants to stay and be part of my bit as well.
Antony Worrall Thompson, the chef, comes on from time to time, and one Christmas Eve he was in the studio giving a cook’s perspective on Christmas lunch, while I was picking produce for our own meal and explaining what I was going to do with my vegetables.
Another guest was Christine Hamilton, wife of the former MP Neil Hamilton. She called me ‘Terry darling’ all t
he time and wanted suggestions for what Neil could grow in their London flat, because he was a keen gardener with no ground to cultivate. I suggested getting a couple of growbags where he could grow salad crops like lettuce and tomatoes.
A momentous event in our lives occurred on 24 April 2004, when our granddaughter Megan Elizabeth Walton was born. She has blue eyes and blond hair, and has been able to twist her grandfather round her tiny finger from a very early age. Now I regularly experience a conflict between seeing her and going to the allotment. And, as you might guess, it’s Megan who always wins.
She has been to the allotment many times and like her grandfather enjoys it there, whether she’s picking strawberries or posing for her photograph while straddling one of my giant pumpkins. Who knows, perhaps if I get her interested at such an early age the family allotment tradition will be safe for another generation.
One day we had a child psychologist on the show. Jeremy has a daughter, Martha, almost exactly the same age as Megan (whom he met when he came down to the allotments). When we chat from time to time off the air or before planning a show we tend to talk about the kids and catch up on their news. After I had done my bit from the allotments on this particular occasion, Jeremy said his guest was still in the studio, and had I got any questions for her about my granddaughter?
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘she’s got to the stage now where if she starts to do something and gets frustrated, she throws things across the room.’ I had a lecture then about how to prevent a child of twenty-one months from throwing. The psychologist explained that I simply had to be stern, to put on a serious voice. And Jeremy said, ‘It’s not easy being stern with your own granddaughter, though. Show him how to do it.’ She produced this quite startling firm voice, and I said, ‘God, you terrify me, and you’d terrify my granddaughter as well.’
About a month after I started on The Jeremy Vine Show in 2003, I had a call from Mish Evans, a TV producer from BBC Wales in Cardiff. She explained they were planning a new programme called I Love Wales.