Post by Admin on Oct 27, 2016 8:03:23 GMT
It might be interesting to have a vote on this topic, and I can set up a poll on here to manage it and show the results, but first it would be good to get a list of those people remember as being authoritative, interesting and strong personalities. In my lifetime I can think of three influential tv presenters - Percy Thrower, Geoff Hamilton and Monty Don, and although most of his enthusiasms have been more commercially-driven than coming from a love and knowledged of plants, wilbarra's chum Alan Titchmarsh did open up a big audience.
If you expand the field to radio then several of the panellists on Gardener's Question time would also show the criteria of knowing their subject well, being passionate about and persuading others to follow their ideas. In their different ways Bill Sowerbutts, Fred Loads and Dr Stefan Buczacki all made an impact on me. I suppose with some of these broadcasters there was a blurring of the lines between an amateur and a strictly professional approach, but for me gardening is all about learning (and all too often, failing!)
One further impressive personality was Harry Dodson, the master gardener in the series The Victorian Kitchen Garden and its sequels.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Victorian_Kitchen_Garden
Although this was mainstream television, and a father of the semi-reality, semi-historical genre of modern reliving of past eras, the repair and reconstruction of the garden, with much care being taken to find the precise varieties of plants and, critically, their purposes in the kitchen, made a big impression on me at the time. Harry Dodson had been a gardener's boy and general handyman in big houses in the Thirties and had seen several of these gardens still maintained in their late Victorian and Edwardian prime, and after the war was a Head gardener and RHS Gold medal winner on many occasions. He also had great p[ersonal charm that shone through.
Who else has fpund strong inspiration from broadcasters?
If you expand the field to radio then several of the panellists on Gardener's Question time would also show the criteria of knowing their subject well, being passionate about and persuading others to follow their ideas. In their different ways Bill Sowerbutts, Fred Loads and Dr Stefan Buczacki all made an impact on me. I suppose with some of these broadcasters there was a blurring of the lines between an amateur and a strictly professional approach, but for me gardening is all about learning (and all too often, failing!)
One further impressive personality was Harry Dodson, the master gardener in the series The Victorian Kitchen Garden and its sequels.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Victorian_Kitchen_Garden
Although this was mainstream television, and a father of the semi-reality, semi-historical genre of modern reliving of past eras, the repair and reconstruction of the garden, with much care being taken to find the precise varieties of plants and, critically, their purposes in the kitchen, made a big impression on me at the time. Harry Dodson had been a gardener's boy and general handyman in big houses in the Thirties and had seen several of these gardens still maintained in their late Victorian and Edwardian prime, and after the war was a Head gardener and RHS Gold medal winner on many occasions. He also had great p[ersonal charm that shone through.
Who else has fpund strong inspiration from broadcasters?