“Good to know you, Paul. Still got your hair on?”
“With such a ghastly fright, I thought you would turn up today totally bald!”
“No, just with snowy locks”
My final arrival around noon at that substantial Victorian mansion, now HQ for this municipal parks and public grounds organisation, was (to put it mildly) tumultuous.
Making my way into that spacious building and following arrows pointing up two flights of stairs to an information unit, I found all thirty or so outdoor staff sitting in a bright common room, going through a man-by-man (or I should say a man-by-woman) fortnightly work plan with a dynamic young lady who was chairing and tightly controlling a vigorous discussion.
As I slid bashfully in, loud shouts, chuckling and chortling burst out and many participants stood up to applaud, call out witticisms or simply put a hand out to grasp my own in a flood of sympathy and good humour. Virtually all my forthcoming work companions, I was told, had had an opportunity about half an hour back, to watch on TV in this room a dramatic broadcast, full of accounts from sobbing participants, all about my wayward bus and how it wound up sustaining that ghastly amputation in dark suburbia. In fact following my call to warn of my tardy arrival, our boss had told all and sundry that an additional staff assistant who was about to start work that day was in fact on board and up on top!
Virginia Mackintosh, for that was how our principal was known, was most cordial, coming up and shaking my hand warmly, but quickly turning back to that group to draw discussion to a finish. As soon as our room was vacant, Virginia said “How about our carrying on a discussion about your background and what you could start contributing to us all, upstairs in my study? It’s got a broad panorama looking across all our grounds?” What could I say back but “Most willingly”?
Virginia was a short stylish woman of about thirty, looking chic in a smartly cut light brown suit, with long blond hair caught up in a pony tail. Running firstly through my CV and scrutinising my familiarity with a long list of horticultural topics (to which in fact I stood up satisfactorily, I am glad to say), I got confirmation of my pay and conditions and also my holiday quota.
Following my approval of such satisfactory provisions, I was told a fascinating history of this building and its grounds. It was run by its local council and was financially sound, thanks to a substantial ongoing annual grant from an anonymous local big-wig from his vast profits from trading in cotton.
Pointing to two big O.S. maps hanging across a back wall, Virginia took pains to clarify how our domain was laid out—its parkland, woodland (particularly its many oaks but also various softwoods), its vast planting plots, glass buildings, ponds, paths, public accommodation such as shops, snack bars, a futuristic auditorium, information points, first aid stations, lost and found huts (for kids and also kit!), plus a host of distinct planting subdivisions along all main paths throughout our domain.
“I trust you find that batch of mug shots hanging up on your right inspiring”, Virginia was moving us along. “Our staff shot all of that pictorial display on show in front of us. With our squad, I run a monthly award for two topical and alluring photos of our parkland. In fact most of my gang carry around all day small digital apparatus for taking rapid instant snapshots.”
Virginia took a long sip from a can of soft drink as I was now studying that array of portraits of my forthcoming companions (all looking happy and smiling—a good sign to anybody joining!) only to carry on with a rundown on staff policy:
“I think I ought to clarify my position. To do so, I must go back to my arrival thirty months or so ago. I took on a dying organisation, virtually bankrupt, with no action plan and no vision, a laid-back and constantly changing staff, who had no motivation (apart from a wrong sort), in fact constant militant tactics from stroppy unionists, still drawing inspiration from Moscow.
“So in my first annual plan, I had to focus on day-to-day survival and on putting our financial situation on a sound basis. I sold a radical approach to our Board—a short and a long duration action plan and on that basis got a substantial grant from our municipal council and also from various groups among local industry. I also found I was tapping into a strong body of opinion in favour of our making a substantial contribution to local tourism by building up and promoting, particularly to visitors from abroad, a major outdoor attraction.
“Staffing, as I just said, was simply all about starting from scratch and I took a major risk by sacking—or as I should call it, allowing to go—most of my quasi-communist payroll.
“What sort of horticultural staff should I look out for as a substitution? I thought long and hard and gradually hit upon a dramatic and daring solution: I was taking on historic parkland, with thousands and thousands of plants from all points of our compass and in no way simply from Britain—built up initially by a dynamic colonial family with a truly global vision. But this sad plot was now calling for a totally original approach, full of innovation and so I thought it was crucial to adopt a similar global vision in looking for collaborators, whom I saw as young, dynamic, with a good grounding in horticultural pursuits, but particularly coming from all around our world.
“So of my basic staff of thirty two—both boys and girls whom you saw just now—I count only six from Britain (and that’s including you—and also a Scot who just dons a kilt most days and so, if caught stooping low to root out unsightly plants, is monstrously popular among us girls!). Just look at that row of individual photos of our group on that far wall display and you must admit, this is UN Plaza! Four hail from Italy, two from Spain, four from Holland, also two from Australia, a Lithuanian, a Latvian, a Saudi Arabian, a Madagascan, also an Irish faction—two from Dublin and two from County Antrim, a Moroccan, an Albanian, a Finn, two Brazilians and just a solo Russian.
“That snapshot to your right shows our companion Jokki, who hails from Tilburg in South Holland—a skilful plantswoman, but also a fantastic sportswoman, in fact an Olympic canal skating champion who won gold in Nagano, Japan. To unwind, that dynamic lady also has a habit of going off skating backwards at top rapidity (if our big pond turns icy)! What’s important for us, though, is that Jokki has that Dutch knack of knowing all that anybody could possibly know about tulips, or any sort of bulb, coming from an illustrious family of plant propagators. Jokki is only happy out of doors, particularly if it is raining, and now controls our bulb syllabus, promising to grow a big display of black tulips for us in our Spring plot, along that south bank of our pond.
“To Jokki’s right, that’s Paolo from Sicily. Prior to joining us, this young man’s job was driving a gigantic truck full of various brands of fashion goods, such as Gucci, Prada and Armani, fortnightly from Bari down in South Italy right up to Hamburg and back again, full of pork, pils and pastry. A bit of an Adonis, tall, muscular, a glorious body with his shirt off, this good-looking young man was thoroughly happy doing his trips by taking on board young girls hitching lifts for company and for who knows what. Paolo has a passion for rough, tough work. Nobody amongst us can dig as fast as him and Paolo is continuously singing out loud—in fact until 2004, his background was La Scala in Milan, with an occasional part as a star in its chorus, having sung in Aida last May.
“But this Spring, Paolo had a draconian bout of laryngitis and was having growing difficulty in maintaining his vocal stamina, so had to withdraw from Vivaldi, Puccini and company and look for a job in which straining his vocal chords was far from obligatory. Paolo now has a loyal following among many of our visitors for giving impromptu gigs, sounding similar to Placido Domingo or Luciano Pavarotti, during his work around our parkland with many of his fans now asking for him to do an official show for charity, singing an array of familiar arias among our floral arrays. Our board is giving it thought, I am glad to say!
“Now that colour photo, two along, throws light on why I had to sign you up to join us quickly. It’s Conchita, a charming young Spanish woman, a skilful and artistic horticulturalist and a good hardworking collaborator who knows what grows and it shows—and who was, prior to coming to Britain, working in a high ranking capacity in courtyards in that magical Alhambra in Granada. Full of that immortal Muslim spirit of harmonious logical plant display, Conchita was just outstanding. Until that girl was hit for six by grim tidings of a tragic loss of an aunt and two cousins in a car crash. Conchita shot back straightaway four days ago to Andalusia, sobbing in agony and saying that with such frightful family obligations as of now, coming back was not an option. So it was sadly “adios” to us all for good. All our group is in shock and with our workload, I must fill that gap illico—so now it’s your turn!
“Finally, it is my policy always to put anybody starting with us with a staff “custodian”, for a fortnight’s induction, to show him all around our domain and to start that pupil off by working with him. This photo is of your guardian. Good looking, no? It’s our own Russian tovarich, Dimitri, an authority on woodland and shrubs. That’s about all. So now I am proposing you go to find a snack straightaway in our kiosk downstairs and that you look out for him at two thirty p.m. in front of our pagoda. Dimitri is working today not far from that spot. But do you wish to ask anything about all this?”
I was most happy with this warm introduction from such a dynamic lady, but l had a burning topic to broach:
“I am so glad to join you all and trust that I will do my job to your full satisfaction. But I am not in such a high class of horticulturists as all that staff smiling back at us from that wall. I may sound bold in saying so but I found it astonishing, following such a short discussion only this morning, how quickly you took on my candidacy without any vacillation. Also, I’m just a bog standard British national—not from any colourful faraway land”
Virginia was smiling broadly now.
“Don’t go hiding your light, Paul. You obviously know a lot about our occupation. But I will admit to you that, apart from your skills, what was also marking you out in my mind for our vacancy during our introductory chat was your fascinating way of talking. Slow and cautious with a distinctly unusual approach to choosing vocabulary and syntax. Although you claim your nationality is British, I must say that I doubt it. But I am not asking you to show your passport and anyway I do not find it worrying. Your way of picking on words is just intriguingly worlds apart—and I go for such collaborators as, in my book, anybody who falls into a “worlds apart” group has broad horizons”.