Little Eden that helped heal me
Last year, TV presenter Nicki Chapman was battling a brain tumour. This year she’s back for a unique virtual Chelsea Flower Show, thanks to the...
FIRST it was a brain tumour, now a global pandemic. For two years running, TV presenter Nicki Chapman has been thwarted, unable to present the nation’s favourite gardening extravaganza from its customary London venue.
Last year, Nicki was recovering from life-saving surgery to excise a tumour the size of a golf ball from her brain when the Royal Chelsea Flower Show was taking place.
This year, the show has been cancelled for the first time since World War II because of coronavirus.
But Britain’s amateur horticulturalists will not be disappointed.
With typical ingenuity, the BBC’s team of presenters — Nicki among them — will be hosting a virtual version of the show next week filmed from their own gardens, while designers will be giving us a peek into their own plots.
Presenting from her garden in Chiswick, South-West London, on five consecutive days, Nicki will chat to experts on how to make the most of colour, space, nature, time and budget in our own outdoor spaces.
‘We’re a nation of gardeners and plant lovers — and at this time, especially, we need escapism and the floral fabulousness of Chelsea, as well as the sanctuary and health benefits of our own green areas, whether they be rolling acres, balconies or just window boxes,’ she says.
Nicki, 53, is talking to me — brightfaced and bursting with energy — in her sun-filled garden, a compact green paradise crammed with palm trees, ilex bushes and lavender.
Her default mood is cheerful; her optimism hard-wired. Today, having been free for a year from seizures — a possible side-effect of the tumour — she is delighted to have her driving licence back.
Her six-month check-up, too, revealed no growth in the vestige of the tumour that remains on the back, left-hand side of her head and could not be safely removed during surgery.
NICkI refused to spend precious energy worrying, or even thinking about it. ‘I call the tumour Burt, and he’s in the bottom of my filing cabinet and the drawer is closed,’ she says. ‘He’s in my past, dealt with. I know he exists, but it’s as if he doesn’t.
‘If he comes back, I’ll deal with it accordingly, but I don’t let it define me.’
Nicki thought she was experiencing symptoms of the menopause when she began having disquieting memory lapses, impaired vision and speech problems a year ago. She phoned her GP who urged her to go immediately to A&E at the nearby Charing Cross Hospital, fearing she might have had a stroke.
‘They swung into action,’ she says. Tests revealed a brain tumour, which had probably been there for years.
She described the shock as ‘like a gust of wind coming towards you.’ More tests, an MRI scan and surgery swiftly followed.
‘Immediately after the operation, I was quite fragile physically, but I felt euphoric,’ she recalls. ‘I’d climbed the mountain.
‘My surgeon had told me I could lose the sight in one eye and have problems with speech and mobility. But afterwards I was elated. I could see and speak and walk!
‘A couple of days before I went into hospital I’d been on the floor sobbing. Shacky (her husband, record company executive Dave ‘Shack’ Shackleton, 52) had to scoop me up.
‘I didn’t want to go into the operation crying, because I think if you can channel fear into positive energy it can only help.
‘So I banished any negative thoughts. And Shacky and I have a rule: you can’t cry for more than 30 seconds.
‘My lovely surgeon David Peterson has been amazed by how quickly I’ve recovered. I think there’s a lot to be said for inner resolve; steeliness of spirit. I’m a tough old bird.’
Fresh air, exercise — and, of course, her garden — have sustained her during testing times. ‘As soon as I was discharged from hospital, I went for a walk with a friend every day. And on dark days I go into my garden and it always lifts my spirits.’
She and Shacky, who have no children, have used lockdown to spruce up and smarten their little urban back garden for its Chelsea debut.
‘I got out the secateurs and shears and pruned the palms. I found a nursery that delivers, and our next-door neighbours gave us a massive bag of compost,’ says Nicki.
‘A green space is a little bit of joy. Nature is seeing us through these dark times. I’m grateful the virus hit in spring, not November, and we’ve had sunshine and blue skies.
‘I happily lose hours in the garden. We’ve done all our chores, re-potted our two Cloud trees, cleaned all the stones round the Ilex hedge, swept the leaves and painted the woodwork on the raised beds.
‘Last weekend, we worked for four hours in the garden, then sat and admired our handiwork, listening to music and sipping margaritas. Absolute bliss!’
There is nothing, she says, as restorative as a haven of green from which to take refuge from a world in crisis.
‘I just look around — at the wood pigeons nesting in the olive tree, at the birds bathing in our water feature, and at my solitary allium bursting into brilliant purple flower — and I reflect that the world has changed beyond all our imaginings.
‘But we have to celebrate the triumphs. And my health is one of them. This time last year I didn’t know if I’d live or die and today
I’m fit and well. Now lockdown has given us leisure to take stock and to re-evaluate our lives. There have been positives: time to reflect, to take a breath, to smell the roses and look up at the sky.
‘And when you’ve been very ill, it puts things in perspective. It’s a reality check. I’m sitting at home in my garden and I’m in good health.
‘Will I stay healthy? I don’t know. But I’ll worry about that if I need to. The last few weeks haven’t broken me.
‘It’s been a testing time, but our gardens have saved us. They heal us, mind, body and soul, and teach us to cherish what we have.’