Full Monty: healing social pain
Although many plants in British gardens are derived from plunder and exploitation, they also have the potential to heal and unite, says Monty
History is written by the victors. When I was a boy – admittedly a while ago – my school was part of a proudly archaic system. Our history lessons were based on two sets of dates that we had to learn by heart. One was ‘Kings’ – the reigns of every British monarch since William the Conqueror (still tattooed into my brain). The other was ‘Specials’ – 40-odd events starting with the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and ending at the Relief of Mafeking in 1900. The 20th century was too recent to be considered history.
In geography, our pre-war atlases still had the Empire coloured in red. Our fathers and grandfathers had ‘served’ in its various outposts, commanding and controlling, and were, mostly, decent men doing their best. We were all very privileged, all white and all being brainwashed into a version of the world that was rapidly becoming irrelevant, even 60 years ago.
Above all, we were inculcated with a sense of superiority based on our race. We did not call it ‘race’, it was education, background or breeding. But every one of those dates that related to Empire – and most after 1700 did – stressed the triumph of the white Christian British over ‘pagan’, brown and black peoples. White lives overtly, unashamedly, mattered more. Slavery was never referred to except its demise (‘Abolition of Slavery: 1833’). The history of it, the wealth it created – let alone the obscene misery – was never referred to.
So what has this got to do with gardening? Who am I – a gardener, for God’s sake – to touch on such matters? But every garden in Britain bears witness to our colonial past. From the late 18th century, the British collected plants from all over the world at huge trouble and expense. We celebrate plant hunters such as David Douglas and Ernest Wilson, portrayed as braving hardship and extreme conditions to bring back beautiful plants to where they can be ‘appreciated’, in our British gardens.
The plants they found that now grace our gardens – rhododendrons, pines, lilies, lupins, clematis, cornus, acers, primulas, the list is long indeed – are a joy. They improve the state of mankind immeasurably. But how would we feel if a colonising force sent people to plunder our wildflowers and take them from remote, perhaps precious sites without any permission?
Bringing back plants from countries you have conquered and growing them in your gardens is not only a visible sign of money and power, it’s a statement of control and colonisation. It was all part and parcel of the assumption that we – the colonial rulers – were better, knew best and could do whatever we wanted.
I feel deeply uncomfortable about retrospective moralising based on modern sensibilities. I love and cherish these plants, and feel we should definitely continue to grow them in our gardens. Everything has context. Do we tear down Stonehenge if we find it was built using enslaved labour? Do we condemn a great man or woman outright because they were badly flawed?
But we absolutely cannot continue to treat people of a different colour, creed or ethnicity as somehow lesser than ourselves in any way. Change must happen now. If it takes drastic actions like destroying statues that are a symbol of oppression to shake white Britons out of our complacency, then so be it. The symbols of the past are just that – symbols – but actions are what matter now.
Our gardens are filled with plants that are symbols and reminders of this. These plants are not suddenly bad, the gardens that contain them are still beautiful, and the gardeners that tend them are mostly decent and good. When we enjoy our gardens filled with plants that were gathered as an act of colonial rule, we should not feel guilt so much as feel inspired by a sense of responsibility to create a better future, and not cling to a view of the past based on a set of assumptions that are now unacceptable.
Lately there has been a growing awareness of the power of gardens to heal mental illness. I believe that gardens can help to heal social hurt too, with real humility, kindness and a sense of respectful kinship that extends to all people.
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I have been a subscriber for years, and each month I look through and read the parts that are of most interest to me. I read and enjoyed the July magazine from cover to cover, and found the tribute to Monty’s dog (Nigel: A Dog’s Life, July issue) particularly delightful. It was so absorbing – a lovely, light and touching read.
Tinia Galletly, by email