A half-century of devoted service (From Gazette Series)

A half-century of devoted service

A GARDENER who has devoted a major part of his life to Yercombe Lodge officially retired at the weekend.

Michael Curtis, from Cotswold Gardens, Wotton-under-Edge, started working there before it became a residential care home for elderly people.

In 1954 Max Workman, who owned the house, first employed Mr Curtis as a groundsman.

Max Workman's great friend Maxwell Joseph, who owned a number of local and national hotels, had threatened never to visit him again after driving his Rolls-Royce up the muddy track to the remote house in the middle of woods.

So Mr Curtis, who originally delivered milk to the lodge as a 15-year-old, was given the task of getting the grounds into a manageable state.

He started by making a driveway and then paid attention to creating the gardens that now surround Yercombe Lodge.

Mr Curtis remembers seeding the lawns with a fiddle-like device which used a bow to spin a tin disc to shoot seeds from a sack on his back and the lawns developed slowly.

While he was working for Max Workman, a phone call from P&O in Southampton asked why Mr Workman was not on the Queen Elizabeth ocean liner.

His boss had muddled the dates of his trip, so Mr Curtis drove him to Cardiff and he caught up with the ship in Ireland.

"All in a day's work for a gardener," the current trustees of Yercombe Lodge commented.

After Mr Workman's death, the Yercombe Trust was set up, with his will stating it should be established for the elderly and needy of Gloucestershire.

From its early days, Max Workman had taken an interest in the care of the elderly at the May Lane Day Centre in Dursley.

He also held several Christmas parties each year at Yercombe Lodge, for the benefit of the needy in the local district, giving to each guest groceries and firewood, which Mr Curtis would gather from his woods, as well as a flower from the gardens.

Trustee Dr Simon Board, who got involved through colleague Dr Eric Carpenter, said: "Michael has continued as Groundsman to the present day, meticulously maintaining the gardens which bring such pleasure to all residents and guests at Yercombe - he also looks after the attached 15 acres of ancient beech woods on the escarpment."

When Dr Eric Carpenter became trustee in charge of the grounds, he couldn't believe that Michael was meticulously maintaining the gardens and woods with scarcely any power tools.

In more recent years, he has had the assistance of some machinery, including a self-powered mower.

The trustees presented him with a cheque on his retirement, and he will be joining the ranks of other retired people who spend time gardening.

Simon Board said: "He has developed such a bond with the garden at Yercombe Lodge that he will be continuing to work for us two days a week."