Planting for pollinators

I was brought up in the deep shadow of World War Two. Like so many veterans, my father, who fought every day of the six years of war, being blown up at Dunkirk, joining the new Commandos and finishing up in the Burmese jungle, never spoke about it. But he was prone to deep depressions and violent rages and the only time he ever seemed to be truly at ease with the world was when he was with other veterans.

By the time I came along – 10 years after he came out of the jungle – I was fed a diet of comic-book heroes and films and the enduring myth of this plucky, sceptred isle holding out against the dastardly Hun. But certain songs would come on the radio and fill the room with a sadness so deep, opening a window onto a profound, inconsolable grief.