‘Gardening helps me face the future’
After the devastation of being diagnosed with Parkinson’s, Gilly Argyle discovered a new passion that gives her a practical and positive outlook on life
As a young girl, Gilly Argyle loved helping her father in the family garden, but was never keen on the chores he gave her to do. Top of the list was always mowing the lawn, watering and weeding when she’d have been much happier sowing and planting. Not surprisingly, her interest in gardening never grew – especially after she married a man with the same attitude as her father. “I was always the dogsbody, doing the boring jobs!” recalls Gilly, a 65-yearold retired social worker who lives in Frome, Somerset. Today, it’s a very different story as she spends most days tending her own awardwinning garden or the community vegetable plot she helped create. “I love it and can potter for hours,” she says. Her later-life passion for gardening is more than a way of passing the time though; it’s become a lifesaver after Gilly was devastated to be diagnosed with Parkinson’s at 52. For several years she’d battled a serious clinical depression, which she later realised was an early symptom of Parkinson’s – a progressive and incurable neurological condition which can leave sufferers struggling to walk, speak and sleep. Forced to leave her job as a social worker because of it, she took on another caring role, teaching life skills to young, homeless people. “I’ve worked in the social care sector most of my life and it was my passion. I loved my job,” she explains. Gilly’s father had taught her never to go into a garden without pulling up a weed
‘There was something very humbling about watching the circle of life in my garden and it’s really very beautiful’
and she had taken his words to heart. “I took it to mean always do good if you can, not just in the garden. It seemed a good philosophy for life,” she adds. But after one finger on her right hand began twitching uncontrollably and her handwriting got smaller and smaller, her new role became more and more difficult. “It got to the stage where none of my colleagues could read what I’d written any more,” she says. Her GP initially blamed a trapped nerve but Gilly asked to see a neurologist in July 2004, who confirmed that she had Parkinson’s. Forced to stop work left her devastated and thinking: ‘Why me?’ When she began falling down stairs she also had to leave her home and move into a housing association bungalow. It was then Gilly, who is divorced, began thinking ‘well, why not me?’ after discovering her love of gardening when a friend volunteered to help her plan her new garden from scratch. “It was in an awful state. The only thing planted in it when I moved in was a clothes airer!” she recalls. Soon she was spending hours in the garden because she wanted to, not because it was a chore, and there was a surprising reward. “I realised there was something very humbling about watching the circle of life in my garden and it’s really very beautiful. When I’m there I have to look to the future, as with Parkinson’s. With gardening, though, the future is positive – the changing of seasons and the continuation of life. “I do still have times when I worry about my future with Parkinson’s, but the proverbial bus might also come along tomorrow for any of us. There is always someone worse off than you. Because of my garden, I am no longer afraid of dying.” Once Gilly’s own garden was blooming with her favourite everlasting sweet peas, old-fashioned rambling roses, clematis and pots of geraniums and wild strawberries, which won her two awards in 2009, she took on another project. With some of her greenfingered neighbours, she helped create a community vegetable patch on a spare patch of land, producing crops including potatoes, peas, beans, salad and cabbages. Neighbours who are not involved are given excess produce in return for small donations to buy more gardening equipment. The two plots keep her busy throughout summer and autumn and she’s often joined in her own garden by grandson Toby (8). “He squirts me with the hosepipe and thinks that’s hilarious!” she laughs. Without any help though, Gilly, who rides an electric tricycle, walks with a stick and uses a frame indoors, admits she can lose her footing out there. “I don’t have any problem with falling. It’s getting up that’s difficult!” she jokes. But she would recommend gardening to anyone. “In the garden I get so engrossed, I forget I have Parkinson’s. The exercise helps ease my symptoms. If I do nothing all day, I feel just as tired at the end – so at least I have something to show for my day.”