What we think of as the quintessential English cottage garden style — mixed herbaceous borders and some pomp and circumstance, and yes, by that we can infer a bit of Elgar and Victoria sponge) — the type of garden praised and replicated across Britain, and adhered to here by a certain type of Irish mindset and the open-garden brigade — is not so English at all.

WHEN the national broadcasting station — in the days when there was only one national broadcasting station — sent out an invitation for families to compete in a quiz programme, I entered our family in the contest.