No gymnastics in the gardens or you’ll be nabbed by the Kew Cops
NeVeR mind ‘Keep off the grass!’ You had better not sleep on the park benches, play music, do gymnastics or make speeches — coppers at Kew Gardens have a list of regulations as long as a painted prodder.
Prodders, or long red batons used to keep undesirable members of the public at a safe distance, were carried by the Kew Constabulary till 2007. Dating back to the 1840s, this is one of the oldest and smallest police forces in the world, and Kew Gardens: A Year In Bloom (C5) followed two of its bicycling bobbies around the 300 acres.
Chief duties include ensuring visitors don’t take cuttings of plants, while stone throwing, tree climbing and stringing up hammocks are also frowned upon.
how Inspector Gorse and Sergeant Trellis would cope with investigating a murder is unclear. Though this show failed to mention it, they might have to — for it wouldn’t be the first time.
A delve into Kew’s archives reveals that in 1913 an eminent botanist, Dr Charles Budd Robinson, was collecting plants on the Indonesian island of Ambon when he made a fatal blunder.
Dr Robinson, who spoke terrible Malay, asked a boy to climb a tree and cut off a coconut. The boy ran away in terror. Within minutes, a rumour spread among the local tribe that a european was rampaging through the jungle, collecting heads. Five days later, Dr Robinson’s body was found at sea, wrapped in coconut leaves and weighted with stones.
An investigation discovered that the scientist died from a slip of the tongue. Reputedly, he didn’t ask the boy to cut off a coconut, or ‘kelapa’ — instead, he said ‘kepala’, which means ‘head’. An official reported to the governor general of the Dutch east Indies: ‘ I had frequently advised him not to go out alone, because he spoke Malay so poorly.’
The nearest this slow-paced and charming documentary series came to violence was a tree surgeon with a chainsaw who couldn’t fell one damaged oak because a pair of mandarin ducks had made their nest in it.
horticulture students donned wooden shoes for the traditional clog and apron race, and the cameras panned over photos of former classmates, including a teenage Alan Titchmarsh. Star billing went to a blue amaryllis, flowering for the first time in ten years. ‘This is going to be one of the pop stars this weekend,’ said gardener Carlos proudly.
Over at the compost heap, the weekly ten-ton delivery of horse manure was brought in by dumper truck. It comes from the household Cavalry stables — only the best for Kew.
Former prima ballerina and Strictly judge Darcey Bussell didn’t inspect the stables on her Royal Road Trip (More4), though she did get her hands mucky when she tinkered with an Austin Tilly truck, as driven during World War II by a young Princess elizabeth.
Darcey prefers the more genteel side of regal life. She dropped in to Charbonnel et Walker in Mayfair to sample the Queen’s favourite violet creams.
Then she stopped for a brimming glass of gin and Dubonnet, the tipple of monarchs, at Quaglino’s in St James’s, where the Queen once dined.
Darcey was enjoying herself, revisiting White Lodge in Richmond Park, home to the Royal Ballet School, where she lived for three years.
As a dance student, she said, she had not realised the lodge had been the Queen’s first residence, during the 1920s.
‘Like the Queen,’ she purred, ‘this was my childhood home.’
If you say so, Your highness.
HHHHI HHHII