Alan titchmarsh, he of the soil, spade and mucky fine Yorkshire accent has written a novel and he's done reasonably well with it. In essence, Mr MacGregor is a story with a decent plot filled with reasonable characters. The down side is that despite the soubriquet from the Mail on Sunday reviewer that the book is unpretentious, it is pretentious.

Titchmarsh writes like he speaks on the telly: in an avuncular, rambling, quasi poetic way. It got on my nerves because it just gets in the way. There are writers who have a flair for description and scene setting and there are writers who seem to feel the need to demonstrate that they have such a flair. Here's an example or two:

The mail slithered in a miniature Niagara from the hall table on to the Afghan rug below and Guy kicked shut the door and walked to the kitchen. The answering machine winked at him from a pine dresser. Nine messages. A chap had only to be away for a day and the world and his wife were breaking his door down by dusk.

He pressed the play button and went over to the kitchen cupboard, took down a tube of Alka Selzer, filled a tumbler with water, dropped in two tablets and slammed his hand over the top of the glass. The sound of the effervescence was not improving the state of his head, which throbbed. page 35

A gentle breeze ruffled the leaves of a row of mixed evergreens down the side of the gravel walk, and he noticed, at the end of the row, the three rose bushes that had been given to him by the late Professor's wife. Wayne had retrieved them from the flood waters and planted them in the first available patch of ground. They were beginning to break into bud; their crimson shoots defying the chilly late February air. He smiled again. Spring couldn't be far away. page 170

In terms of style, then, the book needs some work. I estimated that around a third of the book could go with editing of the kind I am thinking.

One good thing, however, is that at least none of the characters went to Oxford University. My regular visitors will know that the last few books I have read and revieved have all had at least one of the main characters graduating from Oxford. Or the authors themselves are graduates of that fine institution!

Rants and raves over, what about the story?

Mr MacGregor is a gardener: so is Alan Titchmarsh. At least that puts Titchmarsh on familiar ground. As befits a book about a gardener by a gardener, there are lots of gardening things in it. You'll see from the second quotation above how that might come across.

Rob MacGregor isn't Alan Titchmarsh in physical terms although how much of the rest is autobiographical is anyone's guess: it's of passing interest to anyone except those fans who fancy him! Rob is well proportioned and muscular (Titchmarsh isn't as far as I can tell!) and he is much younger than the author was when he wrote the book.

Rob is a good gardener and during the course of the book he becomes the face of gardening: presenting Britain's foremost television gardening programme. Rob's girlfriend is Katherine and despite their relatively advanced years they don't live together although they are committed lovers. We are treated to a few erotic moments between them. I think Titchmarsh does these cameos quite well.

All is going along simmingly as Rob climbs the ladder of success ever higher: Bertie the woofter nances in and out with a limp wristed flourish: Rob is given Bertie's slot on the telly and Bertie turns out to be somewhat gay and creates minor havoc when he is spurned in love.

Guy D'Arcy: by name and by nature is another son of the soil. Aristocratic but redeemed his career pledge for gardenias rather than the Guards! A lothario fallen on less well off times, D'Arcy stumbles from podgy girlfriend to podgy girlfriend. Then he has a stroke of luck and lands a big contract that allows him some financial freedom and to attract Serena Clayton Hinde. Serena is a sexually rampant young thing for whom D'Arcy has probably been looking all of his life.

D'Arcy resents Rob's success and works throughout the book to foil the bligher.

No Oxford graduates but a lady of the manor: Lady Helena Sampson. She pops in and out of the story: Rob used to be her gardener and Rob's father is her supplier of plants . Mrs Ipplepen is a Lady Helena's maid and a Mrs Malaprop to boot. Dickens' Mrs Malaprop is a funny character and a good idea but although Titchmarsh introduces a few good malapropisms, that he did so in the way he did brought on more of that air of pretentiousness that I mentioned before.

Being in television, Rob comes to learn that they are all sex fiends too: he spends the night with a raving beauty of a newsreader who has fallen for him. Katherine is busy on her business as Rob falls foul. This one night stand could have developed into a fully blown affair but Titchmarsh cleverly steers it into infatuation and the cause of a major problem for Rob and Katherine.

The denouement of the story is, ahem, the Chelsea Flower Show! Rob and D'Arcy were supposed to be joint presenters of the show for television but Guy's big contract falls through and he flees to Grenada with Serena. That gives Rob the chance to give another leg up to another beautiful young thing, Bex, whom Rob found by accident at a conference and whom he introduced to television when Bertie flipped his lid.

The last chapter of two sort out some or all of these problems for us and there is the major sub plot of the thread of Rob's father and his nursery business together with some shenanigans and chicanery that I haven't mentioned.

I can't remember how I came across this book: whether someone gave it me or I bought it but it's in the worth a read category.

Finally, I spotted this on page 90: it reminded me of something a friend of one of my sons, Andrew, wrote when he was very young. This is what Titchmarsh wrote in his rambling, quasi poetic style:

... and the soundman who, earphones in place, was twiddling a row of dials and holding a furry sausage on a pole in front of her as if he were trying to tempt a donkey to eat a large, hairy carrot.

Young Andrew's friend wrote: "... he went over to the couch and sat on the settee ..." Oh how we laughed at poor Daniel Roberts!

Duncan Williamson
7 January 2006