It's Been Blooming Marvellous
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday July 21, 2008
Peter Cundall says farewell to Gardening Australia, writes Lissa Christopher.
He might be 81 and retiring as host of Gardening Australia but Peter Cundall's a long way from surrendering to extended naps and daytime television. "I don't want to retire because life is far too exciting," he says with his trademark energy and enthusiasm.Only when talk turns to the global economy does Cundall's sunny outlook cloud a little. He sees tough times ahead and he's using his semi-retirement to write a book about it. "We've got a depression coming. I've seen it coming for years but what I am saying ... is that we can survive, by growing food in our own backyards. That's also precisely why I've been making these bloody television programs with a little vegie patch - to say look, this is what you can produce. The best food you can eat. No poisons. No chemicals. Magnificent production."Of course, Cundall is not working on just one book but two. The second is a memoir. Memory is not a chronological instrument, he says. It jumps around, triggered perhaps by a smell or a quality of light and he has written his memoir in a similar way. "It opens with a chapter I found very difficult to write, about 24 hours in the life of an infantry soldier on the front line," he says. (Cundall has seen active service in three wars - World War II, the war for Palestine and the Korean War)."In the next chapter, I'm three years old. I've written about survival and poverty as a child and experiences I've had as a gardener."Cundall will also continue to write for magazines, make his regular ABC Radio segments, appear at gardening expos in various state capitals until the end of the year and make "the odd television program". Viewers will soon see him on First Tuesday Book Club. It won't be his first appearance. "I am such a bastard and say such atrocious things, you see, that they keep wanting me back," he says.Cundall has no plans, however, to reappear on Gardening Australia, unless "it's for something really special. I'm not into the Nellie Melba thing, I won't be bobbing up to say, 'Here I am again.' I'm moving on to let someone else have a go." There are things he'll miss about the show, such as the quiet 30 minutes he gave himself to prepare before the rest of the team arrived on location.And there are things he won't miss, such as inexperienced producers who "want to put words in your mouth. I would prune a hydrangea and they would say, 'Let's do it again but, listen Peter, instead of saying prune, say snip ... it just sounds better.' They had Buckley's hope with me. There's no script with Gardening. I just go down on one knee and start raving on about how to sow carrot seeds or dig cabbages."There's no conflict or drama behind Cundall's decision to leave Gardening Australia, he says. "One day, about 12 months ago, I got up in the morning and I thought, 'Hang on, I've had enough of this. I think I'll do something else.' That was all."Peter Cundall's final episode of Gardening Australia airs on ABC1 on Saturday at 6.30pm. See preview, p24.
© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald