Carol Klein explains how to sow cucumbers and courgettes
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Carol Klein, the nation’s TV gardening favourite, has confessed that her army recruit father had found it tough when he discovered his first child would not be a boy. While everyone else was celebrating the end of the Second World War a month earlier, Carol’s father was mourning the loss of the son he’d never had.
[My father] was always distressed that I was a girl and I was actually called Bill for the first year and a half of my life!
Carol Klein
Joking about her conception, Carol explained: “Dad was in the Army so must have had leave nine months earlier.
“He was always distressed that I was a girl and I was actually called Bill for the first year and a half of my life by him and my grandad.”
Thankfully for her, her mother then gave birth to a little brother for her who could take on the name Bill instead.
“He’s the brother I lost…. he was a smashing fella,” she reminisced.
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Sadly, he died four years ago from mesothelioma, a disease typically associated with asbestos exposure to the lungs.
Carol developed a passion for gardening early on, but her father made it clear that he disapproved, branding her hobby “a waste of time”.
He’d been equally scathing about her interest in art, to the point that when she earnt a place at a Bolton arts school, she attended in secret for weeks.
That wasn’t the only schooling-related drama she associates with her father.
The Lancashire-born gardening expert’s dad had once been involved in a scam involving National Insurance stamps.
He had feared it was the only way he could raise enough money to pursue a dream of opening an electronics shop and selling televisions.
However, the trickery was discovered and he ended up being jailed for a year.
The “stigma” associated with having a parent in jail meant, according to Carol, that she lost a scholarship to her local grammar school.
“The school found out that my dad had been in prison for diddling, so the headmistress decided that they’d change the catchment areas for people
who were eligible for free places,” she recalled to the Radio Times.
“[It meant that] even though I’d won the scholarship and had been going there for a year, if I was going to continue, we would have to pay.”
Her cash-strapped mother couldn’t fork out the fees, forcing her to relocate to a different school.
Nowadays, in spite of previous stresses, the family-oriented star has a successful job in TV and a beautiful 120-year old period home, which she shares with husband Neil.
The pair have lived together at the former rectory for the past 44 years.
Carol believes that everyone can garden as the talent lies in the blood of humankind – and she is here to share her expertise with the world.
Carol Klein’s Summer Gardening show airs on Friday at 7pm on Channel 5 – and the full interview with the presenter is available to read in Radio Times Magazine.
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