Plot 29 | Allan Jenkins

The changing year brings hope for new life in the allotment, and stirs memories of what belongs to the past

The end of the year, looking forward to the next. There are three gardening generations of us now. Kala planting her tulips and alliums at home, pruning roses, sowing and sharing annual flower seed, learning to trust her judgment. This year also saw Lene come to join us at the allotment. She has a real feel for it, a natural, if you like.

Lene is the first one I call on for cover while I am away. She is a worker, good with watering in summer, she doesn’t miss a thing. She has an eye for a plant, is appreciative of a good flower. She is a warm-hearted companion in winter.

My gardening life started with another old man and my brother. It would have been Christopher’s birthday today, but he was less lucky than me. His hurt buried deep, the harm indelible.

The boys had two patches of land, we were aged five and six, new life, new home, new family. But growing marigolds would never be enough. Magic was elusive, his life more monochrome. He preferred playing football or cricket, gifted with his hands and feet.

Later, he boxed for the army, worked well in London, but long had a dream to return to Devon to farm on Dartmoor. He looked at a place near Princeton, by the prison.

He was on a Christmas holiday in Torbay when he died, a stroke in a cancer ward. He barely knew he was unwell. We had talked of his plans for a cottage by the sea. The walks we’d take together. Like when we were kids.

I grow both styles of marigolds at the plot. Bright, brave calendula, the most like Christopher; showy saffron-tinged tagetes maybe more like me.

I obsessively save their seed because I couldn’t save him. Christopher David Jenkins, RIP.

Allan Jenkins’s Plot 29 (4th Estate, £9.99) is out now. Order it for £8.49 from guardianbookshop.com

Contributor

Allan Jenkins

The GuardianTramp

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