‘If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.’

Frances Hodgson Burnett

I was flicking through the pictures that I have taken during my escapades and I came across some that I took in a forbidden garden in West London.  I say forbidden because it’s one of those gardens that have a wrought iron fence around and you need a key to get in. Anyway, on this particular day the gate had been left open and stupidly, I wandered in. After thoroughly exploring this forbidden paradise, I discovered that somebody had closed the gate and I couldn’t get out.  For a split second I thought that I might have to actually live in that garden but then reality kicked in and I asked one of the locals to let me out.  After seeing the pics and remembering that day, I’m prompted to think about a story of a girl that once found a garden like that and kind of made it her own for a while.  The story I refer to is of course, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

 

Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett was born on the 24^th of November 1849 in Cheetham near Manchester England.  Her father died when she was very young and her love of books came from her grandmother. After relocating to London, she spent time living in Islington and missed the country and the open places to play in.  Frances had an overactive imagination and she loved to make up stories and tell them to her friends and family.  She wrote her stories in notebooks, but unfortunately, the family moved to Knoxville in Tennessee to live with another relative and Frances was forced to burn all of her early writings before travelling.

The first of her stories was published in 1868 in a magazine called Godey’s Lady’s Book. At this particular time she wrote constantly to escape poverty and didn’t particularly worry about the quality of her work.  By 1869 Burnett had made enough money to move her family into a better home.

I could tell you about her marriage to Swan Burnett and their children and how she continued to write and travel, but I’d much rather skip to the time of her life when she wrote my favourite of her works. In Kent there is a manor called Great Maytham Hall where Burnett lived from 1898 to 1907. It was there that she discovered a door in a wall hidden by ivy with the help of a Robin.  Behind the door was a secret garden which was sadly neglected, but was brought back to life by Frances who planted hundreds of roses.  Does the story sound familiar? This was the inspiration for The Secret Garden which was fully published in 1911.

The garden that I stumbled upon in Chelsea

The Secret Garden is a classic story set in the delicious English countryside that the UK is renowned for.  Although somewhat gloomy to begin with, the beautifully written plot brightens as the garden brought to life by a child, brings to life inhabitants of the miserable Misselthwaite Manor.

From the information I have read about this inspirational writer, I can now finish this week’s blog by saying that Once upon a time in Kent, the discovery of a garden planted a seed which was nurtured and grew into an enchanting story that delights those of us who dare to venture inside.