There was a need by the Union Castle Company to have some
flowers and also some potted plants, which would last the long
journey to the Cape. My grandfather started to supply these
plants almost from the opening period of the business. This
connection with the Union Castle Company was kept going right
through the Boer War, in fact right up to the time when air began
to take over the passenger business to the Cape. The firm
started under the name of my grandfather.
Question: You started work when you were like 15?
That was like in the middle of the Depression, right...
...yes
Question: ...and yet they were still growing a lot of
flowers. Who were they growing them for?
Well mainly the shipping because it was the heyday of shipping. The
plants and flowers, which were supplied merely, followed the
seasons. In the spring there would be things like cinerarias
and daffodils and tulips, followed on in the summer period with
things like hydrangeas, followed by chrysanthemums, celosias,
cyclamen...
Question: And were they for decorations for the table,
were they...?
The cut flowers on the Cunard ships were for the tables.
Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, Coronia, Saxonia, Ivernia. The plants
were distributed round all the ships in specially constructed
locations, were quite spectacular on sailing day, in fact they
remained very good right throughout the voyage because the ships
carried a ship's gardener whose job it was to look after them and
water them and generally keep everything in order. At the end
of every voyage, removed any dead plants or plants that needed
replacing, brought in the new ones and … and he took over
when the ship sailed.
Question: Who would give you the orders for what plants
were needed and so on.
This was done entirely with forward planning because with
experience one knows what needs to be replaced and so I was able,
once I got going with this sort of thing, to plan it all in advance
and all the plants were then loaded on to the vans that took them
to the docks in reverse order so they came off each location one at
a time, and was taken to where they had to be put in place and the
decoration carried out. So that worked out extremely
well. But there was no order as such given to us, it was
purely discretionary and went on experience over the years.
Well there was an agreement with the management, shall we say, a
given number of cut flowers would be required and that was a more
or less fixed figure.
Question: OK, so now the decorations what...?
Well the table decorations though the various restaurants, were
little silver vases with three or four flowers in and perhaps a
piece of asparagus or French rye fern, that kind of thing.
And then there were wall containers, which took several dozen
flowers, and some of those were quite high and difficult to reach.
One had to work to a deadline. They were turning the ships
around after the war very quickly indeed because I mean there were
an awful lot of people trying to get across the Atlantic both ways,
and so once the decoration of the tables was finished and the wall
containers, well then we simply left the ship and that was it and
then she sailed within an hour or two.
