02 January 2009
By Emma Cowing
IT’S A CRISP winter morning in the grounds of Auchincruive, home of the Scottish Agricultural College in Ayrshire. The sun catches the frost on the grass as 57-year-old George Collins makes his way down to the old stovehouse with his spade.
“I cleared all this in the past day,” he says proudly, sweeping his arm across an expanse of fresh, clean earth that has, until recently, clearly been knee-deep in weeds. “It looks much better now, doesn’t it?”
For Collins, a former Argyll and Sutherland Highlander who served in Singapore, Germany and Northern Ireland, gardening isn’t just a hobby, it’s a lifeline. In 1971 he was so badly injured by a roadside bomb in Northern Ireland that the medics who arrived on the scene thought he was dead. The only survivor of the 500lb bomb that struck the four-man vehicle in which he was travelling, since his accident he has suffered physical and psychological problems.
“When I regained consciousness several months later I couldn’t write, I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t even use my hands,” he says. “I was like a baby. I couldn’t do anything.”
Now, after over 30 years living at the residential home for veterans at Erskine, Collins is mobile. He’s walking, talking, writing – and gardening. Today he’s clearing weeds at one of his favourite places, the Gardening Leave walled garden at Auchincruive, a unique charity that is providing peace, purpose and hope for former servicemen whose experiences in the Forces have left them psychologically traumatised.
“Coming here helps me think more clearly,” Collins says. “What I really enjoy here is actually doing some physical work, it helps me mentally. It gets the brain to tick over.”
Gardening Leave is the brainchild of Anna Baker Cresswell, a jolly horticultural therapist from Northumberland who became convinced that she had to do something to help after seeing the psychological wounds of war up close when a veteran friend committed suicide.
“I had a great friend in the Welsh Guards who went to the Falklands,” she says, picking her way across the vegetable patch. “He did come back, but he was very changed. It really upset me, and then it annoyed me, and in the end it annoyed me so much that I thought, ‘Come on, let’s do something about it.’”
In 2006 Baker Cresswell got in touch with Hollybush House, the Scottish residential home of Combat Stress, the ex-services mental welfare society that treats veterans with psychological problems. A site was identified for the garden in the grounds of the Ayrshire campus of the Scottish Agricultural College, a short drive from Hollybush, and Baker Cresswell took up her trowel and spade.
“Anna was insistent from the start that we have a walled garden,” says Clive Fairweather, former SAS Commander and chief inspector of prisons for Scotland, who is now Combat Stress’s chief fundraiser in Scotland. “I didn’t get the point of it at first, but she had the vision to say that it’s got to be a place where people feel safe and secure, where we can provide horticultural therapy in a secure environment.”
Horticultural therapy has never before been used to treat traumatised veterans in the UK, although projects in the US, France and Australia have reported excellent results.
The idea is to provide former servicemen and women with a secure environment where they can garden, assessing their needs and abilities and encouraging them to work on projects that produce tangible results, and work together as a team.
“You can’t fool a squaddie,” says Baker Cresswell. “So I have to sell this to the guys who come here as something that’s meaningful, not something stupid that’s being done for the sake of it. So for example all the vegetables we grow go back to Hollybush for the kitchens. And then we have a poppy collection, which includes the Victoria Cross poppy. That made sense to them too.
“The trick is to make sure there’s always something for them to do. The majority of these guys live on their own and have very little to do so they enjoy coming here and being outside, being together, and having something to do with their day. It’s not complicated, really.”
All the veterans who come to Gardening Leave are referred from Combat Stress’s Hollybush House, just outside Ayr, where they will go for several weeks of the year for intensive psychological therapy. Many of the veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, once known as shell shock, a debilitating mental illness that manifests itself through a number of psychological disturbances including flashbacks, nightmares and an intense feeling of being unsafe. Many, once discharged from the services, suffer in silence for years before finally seeking help.
“A lot of these guys have had a pretty hard time of it,” says Baker Cresswell. “They have a heightened sense of awareness, which basically means they are perpetually looking over their shoulder. They can never relax.” The walled garden, which has no corners and is completely sheltered from the outside world, was her way of addressing this issue.
For Rob Brady, a former Royal Marine who fought in the Falklands and served in Northern Ireland, Gardening Leave has become an important part of his rehabilitation. He spends several weeks a year at Hollybush, and comes to Gardening Leave every day during his time there, after his various other therapies.
“Because of the nature of Hollybush you’re dragging up a hell of a lot of bad memories,” he says. “Ok you’re dealing with them, but there’s still no getting away from it. The fact you can escape up to Gardening Leave gives you a bit of breathing space and it gives you a bit of time to reflect.”
Brady lives nearby in Ayrshire, and now, even when he’s not being treated at Hollybush, he’ll sometimes pop up and spend the day in the garden. “I enjoy the companionship,” he says. “I’ve made a fair few friends there. It’s all about everybody helping each other and most people who go there have been through similar things.
“They’ve had similar problems and they’ve got through them, so if someone new comes, other ex-servicemen there can help them along a bit and give them advice.”
The teamwork element of Gardening Leave has been so successful that this summer they won a gold medal, for a show garden built entirely by the veterans, at the Ayr Flower Show.
“That was seriously exciting,” says Baker Cresswell with a smile. “It was just amazing that we were able to send such a positive message – that these are very capable, creative people and there are lots of things they can do. It made me very proud.”
And Gardening Leave continues to go from strength to strength. A research team from Glasgow University are currently conducting a study into the psychological effects on veterans of working in the garden, and the plan is to roll out the Gardening Leave model at other veteran homes across the UK, starting with the Royal Hospital at Chelsea, and introducing similar projects at Combat Stress’s other two residential homes, Tyrwhitt House in Leatherhead and Audley Court at Newport in Shropshire.
Meanwhile, back at Auchincruive, attention has turned to the old stovehouse, an 84-metre B-listed glasshouse nestled at the bottom of Gardening Leave’s patch of land, which has fallen into disrepair. The plan is to restore it to its former glory, with much of the work done by the veterans.
“It will provide an environment with heating and light so we can extend the working day for the guys, and allow them to grow fruit as well as the vegetables they already produce,” says Fairweather. “It was originally gifted to the nation by the Oswald family, the former owners of Auchincruive.
“It’s remarkable that these guys, through mental scarring and injury through war, by restoring it, are giving something back to the nation.”
As Collins heads back up the hill and into the cosy little Gardening Leave hut for a well-earned mug of tea, a robin hops along the frosty path behind him. It’s a tranquil, peaceful scene, as far removed from the noisy danger of a theatre of war as one could possibly imagine.
“One of the really good things about gardening here is being able to plug people back into the cycle of life,” says Baker Cresswell, clutching her tea and looking out over the garden. “At every time of year there’s always something to do. It is very important for people to realise that life goes on.”
• For more information about Gardening Leave visit www.gardeningleave.org and to find out more about Combat Stress visit www.combatstress.org.uk
