To pastures new

If you like to pass an idle half-hour, as I do, reading random entries in Who’s Who, you will be struck by how many distinguished people include gardening among their recreations.

If you like to pass an idle half-hour, as I do, reading random entries in Who’s Who, you will be struck by how many distinguished people include gardening among their recreations. Indeed, it is the second most popular pastime — after golf, bizarrely — in the book. To pick just a few: the Duchess of Buccleuch and Queensberry, Lord Justice Goldring, Susan Hampshire, Mark Damazer, Maeve Binchy, Lord (Chris) Patten and Crispin Blunt MP all own up to spending their spare time gardening.

For busy important people, gardening is the perfect recreation, since it is ultra-respectable, private (unless they choose to open their garden for charity, as Lord Carrington does, for example) and they can entirely please themselves how they do it.