Anyone going to Chelsea this year?

I went to Chelsea with a friend in the early 80s. I enjoyed it, there were crowds but I was young. Now I'm quite happy watching it on TV. I don't like being squashed by crowds.

OH wants to go next year, I don't, but he's never been. I would love to know how @Allotment Boy gets on with an afternoon ticket.

I've been to Malvern a few times, the Hampton Court Flower Show and the Sandringham Flower Show and enjoyed them all but there is a lot more space at those shows.

I don't think that Tayshan Hayden- Smith understands what the RHS does. He's only been gardening for about 5 years and looks on it with the eyes of his local community.

 

My college was in Buckinghgam Palace Road so we used to see people going to the trains carrying enormous plants etc. on the final day. A few years ago my daughter gave me 2 tickets to take a friend as a birthday present. We had to stay overnight, in a hotel in Reading, train to London, we took our own food and were there early which was OK. by eleven you couldn't move, nothing for sale except.bric a brac. Then a long drive back to Cornwall. It was an experience, at the time worth it. Not now.
I went to Hampton Court which I found much more enjoyable, more room, less crowded, plants for sale from day one. Lovely surroundings and a coach driver.
Now I like to sit at home, in a comfy chair, and watch it on TV.

 

@Allotment Boy, a friend of mine lives just outside the free travel zone and was seriously considering moving up the road to be in it. I pointed out the money spent on Stamp Duty, removal companies, solicitors, etc, would probably cancel out any savings.

Don't get me started on BBC news readers. Surely the one qualification required is that you can read a sentence in a meaningful way? There is one in particular who is just impossible to listen to.

Re Hampton Court, I grew up a couple of miles away. You could go in the gardens for free, park for free, go round the maze, stroll among the daffodils, down to the river, have a picnic, whatever, all without paying. Now I think it is £25 to put your toe over the threshold.

 

The RHS approached him, not the other way round. They must have wanted to gather younger members to replace the increasingly ancient membership and thought that he would provide a young face to do that. A bringer-inner of dosh. He, being young, didn’t spot the ulterior motive. He thought that they were interested in “ordinary” people taking up gardening and helping the environment.

 

I've elevated my Hostas, it was effortless. The subtle transition in leaf size and shape is seamless.

Should I be exhibiting at Chelsea?

 

@Jungle Jane if you join the RHS you get free entry to all their gardens as often as you like all year and can take another person. You also get a monthly magazine which is far more varied and informative than repetetive GW magazine.

@Tidemark Many very ordinary people are members - people like me who just like plants and gardens, professional gardeners including some well respected but ordinary origins head gardeners, nurserymen and women, lanscapers, designers, small garden owners and big estate owners. The RHS is a charity intent of spreading the joys of plants and gardens and gardening to a wide range of people. Not everyone running it or working for it is a toff.

Chelsea is about raising the RHS' profile, gaining loads of publicity as articles about the shwo appear in world wide press and TV coverage, promoting UK horticulture in all its forms and levels and promoting good practice while preserving plants and gardens.

It's not the only charity to hold glamorous gala events to raise funds and publicise its activities and the price of a day at Chelsea is probably still cheaper than 90 minutes at Chelsea football club and a lot more fun.

I joined in 1989 and was a member till last December. Living in France means that, since Brexit, only 2 or 3 out of the 12 monthly magazines ever arrive and I don't get to enjoy the free access to the big RHS gardens or the partner gardens so I regretfully did not renew this year.

 

When I worked for Phostrogen, it was mandatory that we went. Long days on the stand, followed by long evenings, hosting dinners for the journalists, TV personalities of the day and plant experts. It was exhausting, but I was young! My favourite plantsman was Tony Clements with his African Violets.
Least favourite was someone who also wrote odes on Esther Rantzen's show.
Most down to earth (literally) was Geoff Hamilton.
Very glad I had the opportunity to work at Chelsea, but wouldn't want to go again.

 

Plantminded, you are clearly tireless.


Like my old bicycle.

 

@Penny_Forthem If the odious (pun) man was the one to whom I think you are referring it was Cyril Fletcher.

 

Agree with @Obelix-Vendée that Chelsea does keep British gardening to the forefront whether we agree with some of the designs/planting choices they promote or not. Along with the RHS and the National Trust to mention just 2, they also have to take into account changing attitudes and fashions to remain viable and encourage people to support them and have an interest in gardening - especially the up and coming generations as they will be the ones in charge in the future.
Travelling to a football match or going to watch a concert ( I don't do either ) can prove staggeringly expensive but each person has their own priority on how they spend their money. Whilst it's unlikely that I would visit Chelsea again, I wouldn't like to see it's demise.

 

If there is more than 5 people there i won't be going, i hate crowds

 

@Philippa Funny that you should mention the National Trust in the same conversation as taking into account changing attitudes and fashions. The NT uses 'maintaining the property as it was in the year dot' interchangeably with 'taking into account....' as and when it suits them. Currently the NT seems intent on wiping out the history of many of the properties they manage. Either that or attaching responsibility for slavery to generations long after slavery was banned. They have become so 'Woke'/'PC', or whatever you want to call it they are barely fit for purpose.

 

Have to confess to working as a Volunteer Hoise and Garden steward for a local NT Trust property some 20 years ago. It fitted in nicely with being an Advisor with a nearby CAB ( voluntary again ). I did enjoy the work and remained a NT member until a couple of years ago. I'd contacted them to ask whether they would consider instigating a local membership scheme ( for the SW UK in my particular case ) as I was no longer able to travel to other areas. I won't say their response was actually rude but they made it clear that they had no interest in adapting their membership scheme ( and the expensive annual fee ). I thought about it for a while but then decided to cancel my membership. I haven't taken a great deal of interest in their actions since then but I get the points you make. History is History good or bad and if you are in charge of a part of it, you should accept it and live with it. Not quite the same as "gardening" tho - I think that will continue to change as we deal with the vagaries of climate, plant diseases and so on.

 

History has happened and cannot be changed but it can be learned from and inform future behaviour and policies.

The white slavers were, after all, selling a product made available by local, centuries old traditions of Africans capturing and selling people from other, mainly tribes to the Arabs and not just on the west coast. David Livingstone headed into central Africa to stop those tribes selling each other to the Arabs who had built a whole town to manage the trade - Dar es Salaam in what is now Tanzania.

Up until the early 19th century the Barbarians of north west Africa were still rading Portugal, Spain, western France and western England and up into Ireland and Scotland for white slaves to sell to the Ottoman empire.

It is a shameful business that still goes on. The people to villify now are the people traffickers and modern slavers still operating in Asia, Europe and Africa and, no doubt, the Americas.

 

The thousands of 'lower class' cotton mill workers of Lancashire would have starved without their black counterparts over the pond slaving away in the cotton fields, wouldn't they?
Divide and rule, my friends, divide and rule...