Book Review: "Beth Chatto - a Life with Plants", by Catherine Horwood, 2019
Joan Gurney (1938-1951)
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Whether you are a serious gardener or not, Beth Chatto’s biography will be as refreshing as a glass of iced drink on a hot summer’s day. It was with great foresight that Beth, before her death in 2019, entrusted her biographer, Catherine Horwood, with her life’s collection of diaries, notes, photographs and drawings, and gave her exclusive access to them. They also met many times and Beth, always a perfectionist, regularly arrived with yet more bundles of nostalgia. Catherine Horwood has made a very skilful job of putting together all the aspects of Beth’s long life from this rich archive.
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As well as documenting her many outstanding achievements and awards, here travels, her books and her extensive knowledge of plants, Catherine leaves no stone unturned, and gives an honest account of Beth’s personal life and emotions - happiness, anger, frustration, anxiety, quilt, affection and above all, her determination. Her distinctive voice echoes throughout the text, and in contrast to the familiar posed photographs, the many unpublished informal ones of her husband, Andrew, her family and friends, give the reader a sense of shared intimacy.
This book will be of special interest to alumnae of Colchester County High School for Girls (CCHS), where Beth (then Betty Little), a local girls, was a pupil from 1935 to 1940 during the time that Miss King was headmistress. She disliked maths, loved literature and poetry, and enjoyed the architecture and atmosphere of Grey Friars. A page from one of her early school exercise books, carefully reproduced, shows that she was also very good at drawing botanical plans. But one of her greatest joys was the little school garden which each pupil was given to look after and tend during their time at Grey Friars. It was here, she once told me, that the seeds of her future career first germinated - and, no doubt, her creative writing ability was honed in English lessons.
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This is a book for everyone who is interested in the many influences on
life and where these may lead you. It perpetuates Beth’s philosophy of Right Plant, Right Place, and Catherine Horwood writes in an easy-flowing style with a great clarity and perception. She gives close attention to detail and even the decorative endpapers at the front and back of the book have their own built in symbolism.
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