Peter Cundall puts down the pen but not the gardening gloves

PETER Cundall has put down the pen after almost three decades as The Weekly Times’ gardening columnist, writes ALEXANDRA LASKIE.

Peter Cundall in his garden at Rosevears. Picture: Chris Kidd

PETER Cundall strides about his abundant Tamar Valley garden, in Tasmania’s north, with the deftness of someone 20 years his junior, bending ably to inspect a pesky weed then nimbly hauling heavy saws to prune an apple tree.

At 91, Australia’s best-loved green thumb shows no visible signs of slowing down. Physically, Peter has defied old age.

But old age is insidious. Ultimately it would be his eyes would spell his “blooming lot”.

“You’ve got a double-header,” Peter Cundall’s doctor told him as he peered into his eye.

Peter was having a check-up to confirm he was still fit and proper to get behind the wheel. The then 87-year-old had healthy blood pressure, “a perfect heart” and was as fit as a proverbial fiddle — except for his eyes. His retinas were deteriorating, his doctor said, and he had glaucoma, an eye disease that would slowly but surely rob him of his sight.

“It was all very controllable,” a perpetually cheerful Peter says. Eye drops twice a day and regular injections into the eyeball kept things at bay for a few years until suddenly, just a few months ago, the glare on his computer screen put an end to his red-eye writing habits. It was during the night, between 10pm and 3am, that Peter would tap away prodigiously — “it’s my happy time” — churning out weekly gardening columns for The Weekly Times, Tasmania’s The Mercury and 3000-word essays for the ABC’s Organic Gardener magazine.

Peter Cundall in 1989.

This week’s column is his last for this newspaper, almost three decades since his words first filled Country Living’s gardening page imparting his zest for life and organic gardening.

“The down-to-earth gardener with a broad smile” was how The Weekly Times’ readers were introduced to the newspaper’s new fruit and vegetable columnist on February 20, 1991. In journalist Leanne Matthews’ introduction to this “friendly organic gardener”, she says Peter is a firm believer in the therapeutic advantages of gardening, and that his greatest reward comes from sampling the produce he has grown. ‘“It’s nothing for me to stand under a tree and eat 20 peaches,’ he says with a twinkle in his eye.”

Peter didn’t expect to possess such vigour at 91. When he was a child he would imagine what would have become of him by the year 2000. “I had a vision of a dribbling old man sitting in a wheelchair,” he says, laughing. But the reality was far different; at the turn of the century, the-then 73-year-old was busy hosting the ABC’s popular Gardening Australia program, a talkback radio segment aired in his native Tasmania on weekends, and he was writing books, columns and essays.

He recently finished his fifth book that’s now being finessed with assistance from his wife of more than 30 years, Tina. What’s immediately clear from his writing — be it gardening column or tome — is a way with the English language that belies his lack of a formal education. “I’m officially illiterate, right? I did three years of primary school and that’s it,” he says defiantly in his still thick Mancunian accent.

Despite being born to homeless parents who rented a room for a shilling on the day of his birth, an impoverished childhood in Depression-era Manchester and dropping out of primary school, Peter developed a love for literature. The library became his refuge.

And rather than bemoan his missing degrees, he feels he has a “marvellous advantage, I’ve never read a book I don’t want to read”. He cites James Joyce’ Ulysses — arguably one of the hardest books to finish — as his favourite.

Peter Cundall with wife Tina and sons Patrick, 10 and David, 13 in 1997.

Just because Peter has hung up the boots on his writing commitments doesn’t mean his gardening pair will gather dust. Retirement and gardening have always gone hand-in-hand, even for a retiring, eyesight-impaired gardener. “I can still dig, I can still weed, I can still sow,” he says. “It’s a well-known fact the people who live the longest are priests and gardeners.”

Gardening Australia presenter Jane Edmanson, who worked alongside Peter before he retired from television, says people still ask her to talk about Peter despite his last episode on the program airing 10 years ago.

“Enthusiasm oozed out of his every pore,” Jane says. “And that’s what people like, he was so passionate and probably still is. That enthusiasm is contagious. And I give Tina a lot of credit too, he couldn’t do all he does without her behind him.”

For a man with such a diverse work history — delivering newspapers and milk, sorting mail, running messages during wartime air raids, as a paratrooper in World War II, a tram conductor, running a landscape gardening business and finally as a newspaper columnist, radio host and anchor of Australia’s most popular gardening program — Peter counts tending to his and Tina’s garden as his favourite “job”.

And on the pearls of wisdom he’s gleaned in almost a century: “Never argue with anyone. I’ve never had anyone say ‘hang on, you’re right and I’m wrong’, that’s the greatest lesson I’ve learnt.”

The modest and self-described pacifist looks back on life with a smile. He fought in several wars and lost countless friends in battle, not to mention two siblings when he was a child. His father was an alcoholic who would beat his mother in front of the children. But as far as Peter’s concerned, he’s had a fortunate life.

“I look back on my life with absolute happiness because I’ve learnt,” he says, briefly earnest. “I’ve made lots of mistakes but at least I’ve used those occasions to learn something from them.

“You’re looking at a person who’s full of flaws. But at least I’ve tried to rectify them.”

READ MORE: PETER’S FINAL COLUMN FOR THE WEEKLY TIMES