... those walks across the moors where we played games on "How far is it to that stone wall?" "How high is that stonewall?" And those afternoons down on the [barbican?] when he would go aboard some cargo boat and get the captain or someone. ...

...and so off to the Melbourne Hospital mother had to take her offspring to be interrogated by the fearsone "Miss Bell" who asked awkward things about my education which amounted to eighteen months at a convent that graciously took this ...(poor little)... Protestant under their wing plus ... occasional efforts on the part of various governesses. The convent would have been very happy hunting ground (for knowledge) for many joyous years had the family not decided to go to Australia and that ended forever a formal education. ....

So off we went to the School of Horticulture. ...Oh yes! That would be more like it we all agreed; all thought of helping mankind having vanished with thin air. "Is she artistic?" the principal asked. Poor mother, that did put her on the spot - not for worlds would she have said "No" but she knew she had no grounds for saying "Oh yes." I could tell by her hazy expression they had started talking about "Landscape gardening" - mother always had ... ideas! And the principal seemed to quite warm to the idea of taking on this odd child, and so without any embarassments about education I was ... enrolled. And so work began - two years of fun and joyous outdoor work under the guiding hand of the head gardener. This old boy seemed to have a soft spot for me; I was strong and perhaps more adaptable than some of the more feminine students, and with some pride I began to notice that he gave me work that he would never give the others. He thought that I would plough a reasonable straight furrow so ploughing between the fruit trees was assigned to me. Goodness! What a happy week that was. Then he needed some fresh soil on one of the islands in the artificial lake within school grounds, so I was introduced to a large (a very large one really) wheelbarrow, a mound of soil, a plant and the island.

It never occurred to me to put only a little in the wheelbarrow, and so with the barrow heaped up I started across the sagging plank to the island and kept spreading out the operation until Mr. Russ (the head gardener) came and said "That will do", and I remember how those intense blue eyes of his twinkled. That I did not displease him was all I ever cared, so deep was my respect.

As for the other instructors - well! They were, I'm afraid, more a source of merriment than reverence. That the teacher in landscape design didn't succeed in putting me off the idea for life never fails to astonish me, the sickly sentiment and the ... suggestion of ... and techniques all of which I was soon to learn had nothing to do with a successful landscape garden. Obviously it was a gift, not something that could be taught, and largely a matter of knowing when to leave well alone!

However after two enjoyable years of Mr Russ ... and ploughing, I left the school armed with a certificate telling the world ... what a good little horticulturalist I was, having achieved full marks for efficiently sealing down jars of preserved fruit - and there was something else I was good at but I can't remember it now. I know it wasn't landscape gardening, but it ... got me that certificate.

Then came the immediate ... to earn my living with the obvious only answer 'gardening'. Ah well, it was out or down(?) and ... and .... So off I went to collect my ... In ... houses of mowing and digging in any garden when the owner was ill-advised enough to have me inside the gate.

I never got to like the person who used to bring her morning tea out into the garden so that she could give orders whilst she sipped and I sweated. Perhaps it never occurred to her to have a cup sent out to me.

I used to go to Dame Nellie Melba's sister, she was a dear, [who] plied me with drinks and food and funny stories all day. One day she went to town and I had an inspiration. There was an untidy corner that had always been left out of the scheme of things and so turning my back on all the ... and mowing and staking which I hated I got to work and "landscaped" that corner. It was a big enough garden too [in] which to find all the necessary odds and ends. She took one look at it and said "I couldn't stand those ... Edna", that was my first essay into landscape design. I spent the rest of the time cleaning it all away again - and yet I still became a landscape designer, but soon found it was the architecture side of the work that interested my looking upon plants [...] and [...] rather than horticultural wonders avoiding garden shows and [...] as the plague.