BEVERLEY NICHOLS Passages

Rex Whistler illustration for one of Nichols books

"a garden is a place for shaping a little world of your own according to your heart's desire"
Beverley Nichols from Garden Open Tomorrow

the Nichols Sudbrook Garden

Earlier this summer, I had the real pleasure of sitting down to chat with a bonafide Beverley Nichols scholar.

No, I did not head off to Richmond, Surrey.

Nichols' Georgian Manor House in Ashtead, Surrey
known to readers as MERRY HALL

find out more about the real one(here)

This Nichols devotee was in my own backyard! Not Quite- but... The distinction of being the one cited authority on Beverley Nichols goes to North Carolina native Roy Dicks. Roy and I sat down over- oh so Southern- Ice Tea and spent hours blissfully waxing poetic about Beverley Nichols. You just want to do that when Beverley Nichols gardening books are on the table.

Sudbrook

This spring Timber Press released the book Roy edited- Rhapsody in Green-The Garden Wit and Wisdom of Beverley Nichols. The title comes from one of Nichols chapters in Green Grows the City. The collection is wonderful- After reading its pages, I want to run back to my own Nichols copies and start reading again. No one could turn the garden phrase like Beverley Nichols- not to mention- filled with the sorts of people one wishes to run into along the garden path.

My own introduction to Nichols came about 10 years ago- I just stumbled into him. A passing reference to this prolific writer and his gardening books intrigued me and my 1st reading was of Merry Hall. I started growing some wonderful lily specimens after reading of Nichols own lily love, devotion and worship. Over the years, I found most of the Garden books and have filled in the missing ones with the Timber Press's faithful reprints.

"Some fall in love with women; some fall in love with art; some fall in love with death.

I fall in love with gardens, which is much the same as falling in love with all three at once.
For a garden is a mistress, and gardening is a blend of all of the arts,
and if it is not the death of me, sooner or later,
I shall be much surprised."
Beverley Nichols- 1st lines of Merry Hall

As you can imagine-I was hooked.

Beverley Nichols in the Garden of Merry Hall

"a little gem"

photograph from the JC Raulston Arboretum

"I must confess that for me the flower of the magnolia is most beautiful when life has almost ebbed from it. These are the twilit hours when the petals flag and falter, when their immaculate ivory texture dims, when they glow with a ghostly radiance that seems to come from another world"
BN from Forty Favourite Flowers

Roy was introduced to the world of Beverley Nichols by friend and gardener- JC Raulston. If you enjoy the beauty and fragrance of the Magnolia grandiflora "little gem"- you can get down on your knees and thank this late horticulturalist. He is recognized for revitalizing garden nurseries across the country with such species as the likes of "little gem" and has an arboretum named in his honor in North Carolina.
(Read more about him here and the Arboretum here)

Down The Garden Path was the first of the 60 book titles by Nichols that Roy collected. In 1994, Roy began his search for the Nichols oeuvre with the help of a book finder in England. Through this search- he became a friend of Nichols' biographer Bryan Connon, made pilgrimages to four of the Nichols' homes and began his pursuit of having the Nichols gardening books published for a new generation of gardeners and readers. Roy approached Timber Press with the idea and after many starts and stops- their first-Down The Garden Path, of now ten books is in print. Down The Garden Path is also the first of Nichols' magical ramblings about the joys of gardening and the love of a house. Along with editing and writing several of the introductions for the books, Roy lectures throughout the country on Nichols and his books.

Nichols and great friend Osbert Sitwell

At our sit down, Roy encouraged the reading of the Connon's Nichols biography. Just as expected Beverley Nichols was witty, cuttingly humorous, multifaceted and very complex. He orbited with the stars and the royals during his heyday and I hope Nichols' words become bandied about everywhere in the near future- especially here and hopefully on other blogs as well.

the Glatton Garden
Down the Garden Path

Beverley was known less for his "hands on" in the garden and more for his "hands off "in the garden.
When it came to the labors of the garden BN left it to the laborers.

Nichols at Glatton in front of his Tudor Cottage





with friend and companion Cyril Butcher
atop A Thatched Roof
Glatton

As for the "Truths" in the Nichols gardening books- Roy tells all; The Houses and Gardens were very real. Nichols' love for both was certainly real and Our Man- Gaskin- Nichols' valet amongst valets- was real, as was Oldfield-Nichols' beloved gardener.

Nichols, Gaskin, Oldfield

Roy's "favorite Nichols book is definitely Merry Hall. I think it is his best single book because it was written at the height of his powers in 1951, having written the Glatton trilogy and "Green Grows the City" before it, so his garden writing was very confident. It is full of quotable lines and wonderful scenes with the battling women neighbors."

On that note, from the biography of Beverley Nichols A Life by Bryan Connon, hear Nichols on his characters (excerpted from BN's The Gift of a Home)
Reader- You may choose to skip these descriptions but I advise you not to- the words of Nichols on his creations are highly diverting!

"one of the characters who seems to have most interested people is MARIUS, the amiable scholar who wanders through the page dropping little scraps of knowledge as lightly as if he were taking part in a sort of literary paper-chase. Since his outstanding characteristic is his erudition I feel embarrassment in confessing that Marius is really only a fictional extension of an aspect of myself. Although this sounds conceited... As we go through life most of us accumulate quite a large collection of miscellaneous curiosa...it seemed...amusing to gather them together in the brain of another man, and let him play with them as he pleased. As soon as I had conceived this idea, Marius began to become very real to me."

on "OUR ROSE": So many readers claimed to have met her in their own lives. Well, of course, they had met her, if they had ever belonged to a provincial Garden Club ... Our Rose is a distillation of those thousands of ladies who have transformed the gay and careless art of flower arranging into a grim and exacting science, with formal rules and strict taboos, and serried legions of passionate contestants, hotly arguing about the precise angle at which a lupin may be place in its appropriate vase.

& MISS EMILY: again many readers claimed to recognize her. She was a very English type- well-bred, down-to-earth, not overburdened with humour, inclined to be bossy. You can still meet her in many a country lane, tramping home to a luncheon of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, with an elderly spaniel at her heels... Neither of these ladies was of an amiable disposition, and neither had much feminine allure. But I have a fondness for them... 'they may have been a headache, but they never were a bore.' To me, at any rate.

Nichols and his gardener Oldfield in the greenhouse
Merry Hall

For Beverley- writing his gardening books " was more like arranging a bunch of mixed flowers, here a story, here a winding paragraph, here a purple passage, and suddenly there was a book."

from BN All I Could Never BE

A favourite with Nichols' gardener Oldfield

Lilium 'Triumphator'
at the JC Raulston Arboretum

The Rhapsody book is illustrated with the original William McLaren drawings that accompanied many of the original Nichols books. The detailed drawings depict cherubic garden statuary, flower specimens and intimate vignettes from the garden.

a McLaren illustration

Rhapsody In Green will take you through all Nichols' garden books-in brief, leaving you with a quickened step to visit Nichols in all his gardening splendor starting... down the garden path.

Favourite Quotes from the Collection-

Casablanca Lilies from the Garden of Toby Worthington

Roy says his favorite quote is the one the book ends with and the one he always save until last in my talks:

"If all men were gardeners, the world at last would be at peace."

(BN, from Green Grows the City)

"The regal lilies do indeed praise the Lord. Some of my own, last summer were so exultant that they praised Him through no less than thirty snow-white trumpets on a single stem, and even the most accomplished angel could not do much better that that." (Forty Favourite Flowers, BN)

Nichols with lilies from the Gardens of Merry Hall

"A clump of paeonies, to its owner, is something that is deeply rooted in his heart. These flowers are part of himself... The owner of those paeonies has slaved for them, sacrificed for them, sometimes, I think, taken years off his life for them. They are not just 'for cutting', They are for living with, and maybe for dying with, too." (Laughter on the Stairs, BN)

the other two books in the Merry Hall trilogy

"There is only one 'basic rule' in flower arrangement. And that is to love the flowers, to listen to what they have to say, to watch the way they dance, and then to allow them to express themselves in their own sweet way." (The Art of Flower Arrangement, BN)

photograph from the JC Raulston Arboretum

"Even a single 'shop' carnation in a country bunch seems to put the whole thing out of focus, like a woman in a Dior dress at a meeting of the parish council." (Garden Open Today, BN)

Down the Garden Path- along with these two books are known as the
Allways trilogy-
& follow the Tudor cottage & garden in Glatton, Cambridgeshire

When I checked back with Roy recently- I had to ask a few very personal questions- and in the vein of previous posts- Of course One had to be-

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE FLOWER?

"It's always hard to select a favorite flower, but if pressed, I'd say it would be hellebores. There are so many colors and patterns and they add color to the winter garden all through January, February and March."

AND FINALLY- HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW?

"Right now I have some early fall-blooming cyclamen in the garden, and some Formosa lilies."

AHHH! I THINK NICHOLS WOULD APPROVE.

all of these beautiful b&w photographs come copyright Timber Press- thank you for allowing me to use them.