Stately garden where Hezza grows grumpy
One moment she was there, and the next minute — poof! — she was gone.
There’s something spooky about the speed with which Cabinet ministers disappear. When Sajid Javid appeared outside the Home Office, boasting of his bold new plans, it was as though, with the wave of a wand, poor old Amber Rudd had simply vanished.
Justine Greening, Priti Patel, Damian Green, Michael Fallon: all so omnipresent six months ago, but nowadays a distant memory.
For some strange reason, even the humblest former pop star has a greater claim on our collective memory than the grandest former Cabinet minister.
Take Maria and Marie, for instance. Which of us can still picture Maria Miller, who was Culture Secretary barely four years ago? Yet I still have a crystal-clear memory of Marie Osmond, even though her only hit, Paper Roses (or Woses, as she called them), was last in the top ten 45 years ago.
Last week, I tuned into The One Show. Their blunt, northern, no-nonsense gardening expert, Christine Walkden, was outside Thenford House in northamptonshire. This was, she announced, ‘one of the stateliest of piles but a well-kept secret’.
‘You won’t have seen this in any of the Downtons or Jane Austen films because it’s rarely in the public gaze!’ she continued. ‘ The owner says he doesn’t want to court publicity — which is a bit odd since it’s Michael Heseltine!’
She then had to explain just who Michael Heseltine was. ‘As an MP for 35 years and now a peer, fame and notoriety have been snapping at his heels for decades!’
Lord and Lady Heseltine had, said Walkden, created a vast 70-acre garden. ‘ Do you know how many species you’ve got?’ she asked.
‘Three and a half thousand that we’ve now verified,’ he replied, a little smugly. ‘not bad, is it?’ ‘So how do you get around?’ ‘We’ve got a buggy.’ ‘ But how do you get your exercise?’
Heseltine looked irritated. not so long ago, he was holding forth to Jeremy Paxman on Urban Regeneration, and now, here he was, having to answer questions about buggies. ‘ There’s plenty of other ways beside moving from one place to another,’ he snapped; and then came a testy laugh: ‘Huh, huh.’
The two of them, Walkden and
Heseltine, were then filmed squashed together on the controversial buggy, tootling around this Trump-style, show-off garden, both of them struggling to sound natural. ‘A lot of magnolias!’ ‘Yes, a lot of magnolias!’ They came to something that, to me, looked like an upmarket sewage treatment centre, but which Walkden breathlessly described as ‘a water feature — a complex pumping system feeds nine pools and THIRTY- SIx fountain jets!’
In case we had forgotten how important he once was, Walkden sought to remind us.
‘He even challenged Margaret Thatcher for the Prime Ministership!’ she said, adding: ‘But this is as close as he got!’
She pointed at a bush. ‘It came from cuttings taken from the gardens at Chequers! He thinks the Prime Minister gave him permission, but, whether or not, it’s his!’
Then came a moment to treasure. It could have been spoof interviewer Philomena Cunk asking the question.
‘Did you really have a serious FALLOUT with her?!?’
Walkden asked this in a tone of voice which suggested no viewer could possibly be
expected to recall such a daft thing.
‘ Well, er, I think historians will remember that,’ muttered Lord Heseltine.
‘But do YOU remember it?’ asked Walkden, implying this old gent was losing his marbles.
‘Yes,’ Heseltine replied, curtly. ‘I do .’
THe tour continued, through an absurdly grandiose formal area, reminiscent of Mr Pooter Goes To Versailles. ‘How many gardeners do you have looking after the place, then?’ asked Walkden. ‘Ten gardeners.’ ‘Ten! That’s more than Buckingham Palace has. I’m told THeY have only eight!’ ‘It’s all a question of scale.’ Such is the fate of former ministers. The man who used to be so powerful and ubiquitous is now lucky to appear on The One Show, filling the four-and-a-half minute gap between an interview with an actress and an item on how to grow your own runner beans.
And what of Amber Rudd? Will she fare any better?