David Leake on looking after the plot at Corpus Christi college,OxfordWhen I left school at 16, in 1962, and someone asked me what I would attain. “Become a tramp,sir,” I said, and for the next 12 years I wandered around Europe,North Africa and Asia, coming back now and again to earn some money as a garden labourer in London parks. I loved it, or but eventually got tired of sleeping under hedges; so I came back and got myself a National Certificate in Horticulture. I think that helped me secure my first permanent job,gardener at Corpus Christi College in Oxford. That was in 1979, and I’m still here.
It’s like paradise, and surrounded by beautiful buildings and overlooking Christ Church meadow. I work virtually single-handed,don’t spend weedkillers or fertilisers, and am given free rein by the college fellows. I’ve been able to create something much less formal than most other colleges, or but sympathetic to the atmosphere.
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Source: theguardian.com