A Garden Find

When we moved out of London in the 1980s and bought a cottage in a Sussex village, we planned to grow organic vegetables in the large area of rough grass at the back. This overgrown garden had many years previously been a market garden, containing two old apple trees (Jubilee variety, perhaps planted for Queen Victoria’s Jubilee), and the earth was a lovely dark loam. My husband did most of the design, laying out and upkeep, but I assisted with digging, weeding, growing and transplanting seedlings, slugging etc. We had a very large area, growing a wide range of crops, from beetroot to sweet corn, broccoli to potatoes, saladings, courgettes etc.

After decades of cultivation, there wasn’t any treasure left to discover (it had at one time been the site of a mediaeval fair, I believe, so past gardeners may have turned over some interesting coins while digging), but during our ten years there, we did find a few tiny dolls’ heads, game counters, pieces of clay pipes, etc, even a bullet case, which may, who knows, have dropped from the skies during the Battle of Britain?
Towards the end of our time at the cottage, on an afternoon when I felt very low in spirits and in need of some sign from the God of my understanding that, essentially, all was well, and all would be well, I sent up a silent but heartfelt prayer while digging over a bed right at the bottom of the garden. The very next spadeful turned up a tiny china dove.

I cherish it still.