19 DECEMBER 1992, Page 92

Gardens

Lady Rakehandle's Christmas

Ursula Buchan

Idon't mind admitting, I was rather thrilled. Last summer, I was asked by Lush Locations whether I would mind if they used my place for their Christmas issue. I agreed, after we had come to an Arrange- ment, because the Manor does rather lend itself to Festive Occasions. It all came about because, last year, they sent a fright- fully tiresome scribbler called Ursula Buchan (sounded like a made-up name to me!) to 'write us up'. She asked all the wrong questions, went on and on about the plants, and bored me half to death. I am glad I didn't ask her near the House, because she looked just the type who'd try to get chummy.

'However, a perfectly sweet photographer came the next week, and he really seemed to understand about this Garden. He hard- ly trampled on a single delphinium, and took heavenly pictures of our dear little West Highland asleep in the trug basket, so it was all right in the end. The magazine people were marvellous: they sent me masses of copies of the article after I rang them up and made a very slight nuisance of myself.

'They had to come and take their pic- tures for this Christmas thingamajig in August! Some sweet young people arrived and moved all my Things around. They were called 'stylists', or some such word, but they didn't look at all like Carly who does my hair in Stow-on-the-Wold on Fri- days. You couldn't recognise the dear old place by the end of it.

'Then they brought out wreaths and tar- tan ribbons and furbelows and cache-pots from the car and arranged them all in one corner of the drawing room, and stuck fir cones on the wall. They even "tablescaped" the escritoire. They had the dickens of a job finding a Christmas tree in August, as you can imagine, but they finally hit on the plan of sneaking over the ha-ha and dig- ging one up from old Thingummy's planta- tion, which I must say was jolly enterprising of them. But there was one poor girl whose job it was to spray a fine mist over it all day to stop it dropping needles. Mrs J, our daily, lent her the spray starch, which did the job beautifully.

'They were all called Sarah, except for a lovely boy called Jacob, with a shaven head and a floppy moustache, who fused all the lights and burst into tears. I think he must have been a little bit sweet on one of the Sarahs. Too funny.

'The Garden pictures came out the best in the end. It was difficult making the Gar- den look really wintry but they did a mar- vellous job with spun sugar and tin cans of snow. Luigi, our darling Italian gardener, was given a waistcoat, a flat cap and mole- skin trousers to wear, and spent the entire morning leaning on an antediluvian wheel- barrow which they found buried under the Warfarin in the Fruit Room. He loved it. They had an idea, because of some dam'- fool article they had all read in the Tittle- Tattle, that these days people like to garden in their birthday suits, but I put a stop to that nonsense right away. I wasn't having him put his back out before the Flower Show.

'I had to send Pam, my dear sad sister, out of the way for the day, because she is inclined to mope about, wearing those ridiculous corduroy breeches and water- proof hat. I told her the compost heaps needed turning, so she went off, as happy as a sandbag, to find her pitchfork. I really didn't think she would find it at all amus- ing.

'The hardest part was persuading the vil- lage school children to exchange their shiny pyjamas and brightly coloured plimsolls for knickerbockers and pinafores so that they would look right singing carols under the Christmas tree, but a quick telephone call to the Chairman of the Education Commit- tee soon sorted that out. I also had a job digging the Rector out of his pigeon-hide to come and pretend to drink mulled wine. I brought him to heel in the end, though, by hinting I would tell the Bishop what he'd said to me about women priests at the Safari Supper in aid of distressed commod- ity brokers! Altogether, a most satisfactory day, I think.'

(Guinevere, Lady Ralcehandle was in Con- versation with a Very Old and Dear Friend.)