Am I a Snob?
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By Jane Hyphen
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Am I a snob, of sorts?
I was driving home from work on Sunday (if only people were still paid double time, I might even get close to the average wage), and I passed by a house which had recently changed owners.
The previous owner had been a lovely mature lady who volunteered at the local charity shop and also the Salvation Army. I remember when my children were very small being a regular visit to the charity shop where I would purchase toys. My children were only ever looked after by me and would get bored quickly so I employed an endless toy exchange system which was affordable and ethical by purchasing second hand.
Every time I went into the shop this lady would ask the name of my youngest daughter, Helena and every time she would respond by shouting, ‘Oh the name that launched a thousand ships!’ I found this sort of embarrassing but quite charming too because it meant that she was comfortable enough in her job to express herself. An important thing in any workplace, essential to mental health. A colleague and I always make chicken noises while we lock up the premises, it releases all the stress of our day before we head home and our other colleagues are used to it….now.
The lady lived just up the road from me and her house was well kept but it was evident that not much had changed in thirty years or more. The front and garage doors and wooden window frames were painted a dated shade of pale blue and she had kept most of the front part of the property as a garden rather than driveway. Her front garden was messy but beautiful with loads of self-seeded Californian poppies, aubretia, campanula, aquilegia, basically promiscuous, cottage garden type plants. In short her property was like her, soft but bold, old fashioned but active, educated but eccentric, well actually I’m not sure if the house was educated but it had a spiritual presence and a television.
My children grew up but I occasionally still saw her on a Sunday morning, looking like a solid member of the community in her Salvos uniform and sturdy shoes. Then some more years passed. I wasn't around so much because I was working, I didn’t see her but the Californian poppies in her front garden kept on germinating. Then, last year I saw that the house had a ‘For Sale’ sign on it and I felt sad thinking about her kind face. I blinked and the entire front garden had been dug up. The front door and windows were then replaced by PVC, including a PVC porch, the driveway was extended to house multiple vehicles but worst of all….
The remaining part of the front garden, just a strip, had been planted up with Photinia Red Robin and Prunus laurocerasus, aka Cherry Laurel, neither of which are native to the UK. The former has no real value to wildlife, the latter is very toxic to most living creatures, it contains cyanide. Their value lies in the fact that they are easy to grow, relatively cheap, with glossy, evergreen leaves (which take years to decompose) and reasonably tidy looking. To most gardeners, they are dull, rather repellant and should be restricted to Tesco car parks to break up the expanse of concrete and provide a cover for rat bait boxes.
So I drove past in my not very eco-friendly Saab and said to myself, ‘Urrgh! The new people have put PVC everywhere and planted their garden with disgusting Red Robin and Laurel. I bet they have pictures with ‘Live, Laugh, Love' up on their kitchen wall and have full gym membership and go to the Copper Club for breakfast on Saturday and are saving up for a Porsche Cayenne.’
By the time I reached my own house though, I was feeling a bit guilty about being so judgemental, categorising dwellers of suburbia and assuming an ignorance on their part for their planting choices. I’m not really sure what my form of snobbery is based on.
Did the untidy nature of the old lady’s garden and her painted wooden window frames make me feel safe? Am I suspicious of newcomers with money to spend on home ‘improvements’? Am I resentful of corporate people who earn six times more than me? If there was an option for the old lady to live forever, the blue painted wooden window frames to last forever and the Californian poppies to keep germinating year after year in a never ending cycle, would I take it?
Am I....a snob?
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Comments
I don't think you're a snob,
I don't think you're a snob, and I will join you in being cross about gardens being turned into car parks, although at least they haven't put down fake grass ..have they? Apparently it's becoming really popular, even though it's so deadly to any kind of wildlife.
I enjoyed your pen portrait of the Salvation Army woman and her house - thank you Jane
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we're all snobbish in
we're all snobbish in different ways. I call Downtown Abbey, Parasite abbey. I hate shows like that.
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I doubt you are a snob since you asked the question
Maybe you just have good taste.
I had Red Robin in the garden but as a stand alone shrub not a hedge. I prefer wooden fences with plants growing in them.
PVC is awful and impractical and doesn't last very long, but a third of the price of wood windows. If your nemesis neighbours had to fit PVC I doubt they could afford a Cayenne anyway.
Nice cars though, they do electric and hybrid versions now. Our local taxi company has one. Too high for my short legs I nearly fell out of it. I have the same problem with most of these giant SUVs Hmm maybe I'm a reverse SUV snob.
Don't worry about it Jane, like my legs, life's too short.
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The old lady sounded like a
The old lady sounded like a woman after my own heart. After going for years with hardly any garden at all, we were lucky enough to purchase the house we now live in back in 2004. We don't have a front garden, but the back makes up for that.
You are not a snob, I think you'll agree that creatures need their own space to thrive as much as we do, take that away and life is hardly worth living. It's certainly about balance, and the old lady sounds like she had plenty.
But in the end I suppose it takes all sorts of people to make up this world we live in, we just have to do our best with our own patch of ground.
An inspiring read.
Jenny.
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Hi Jane
Hi Jane
I don't think you're a snob. Horses for courses I suppose. It is a very descriptive piece.
We have a very scrappy front lawn. Last year we let the clover and other weeds alone, attracted lots of bees. This Winter the lawn also attracted foxes/badgers. They happily routed about and tore a part of the lawn to shreds.
Lindy
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Always entertaining. Always
Always entertaining. Always superbly written. This is our Pick of the Day -- please do share on social
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I feel sad whenever what you
I feel sad whenever what you describe happens, someone nearby has cut down most of their trees, concreted over their garden, torn off an intricately carved listed wooden porch "I didn't know it was listed but it was rotten anyway" and persuaded the council to pull down the disused church that was blocking a portion of their sea view at the same time as being (perhaps uniquely) covered every Summer in a cloak of tiny purple wild geraniums and home to tons of creatures. They are a pillar of the community and always friendly. Am lost as to what to say when they proudly show me their improvements and look with bemusement at my single roses scrambling about "Oh bees!" they snort, pulling up a tiny weed trying to grow in a crack in the concrete before telling me about some really good secateurs they have which might be helpful :0)
So, it was brilliant to read your account, and I feel so sorry for the lady's house and her garden, fallen. I loved hearing about her beautiful flowers, and rich character
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it was!!!!
it was!!!!
this is an image I found, not sure if the link will work
https://www.google.com/search?q=purple+church&rlz=1C1ONGR_enGB1012GB1012...
ps I think they are wild geraniums, I remember spending ages looking them up online and that they are
How lovely for Mr Pip to have had a wild place so near, did he used to like hunting mice in the long grass, and jump up in the air and land expecting them to be trapped under his front paws? My lurcher used to do that and always be completely flummoxed that the mouse wasn't there :0) Mr Pip must have had a wonderful life. I am sorry to hear you lost a cat, too. Though like you say it is fun watching birds flood back in
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no, not campanula. You know
no, not campanula. You know geranium pyrenaicum? I think it was some kind of that
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I do wish I had had my camera
I do wish I had had my camera then, to show you Jane, the slates on the roof were purply greeny blue after rain, and pigeons would beon them, all irridescent, and then these purple flowers bursting out of every crack. The church had an amazing, HUGE carved wooden door, too, really tall and arched, so two halves, and wonderful hinges, all grown over with trailing ivy
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Your piece made me smile,
Your piece made me smile, Jane. I now live about 2 miles away from my previous house. Moved in 2003 to get the kids into a new school. Now and again I feel the need to drive up to my previous home and have a gawk. Just recently it was noted that the windows had been changed. I was aghast and declared it so much worse than the ones I had put in when I lived there.. Bruh on me being judgemental like that!
You have a keen eye for the flora in gardens. Such detail. I really hate seeing gardens paved over. I'm not so observant re non environmentally friendly plants and stuff.
Are you a snob? Hmmmm... you drive a Saab lol. No...no....I'm sure you aren't :)
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