YOU might recognise her voice and even have woken up with her on BBC Radio Scotland.
Travel announcer Theresa Talbot has helped commuters get through their daily journey for several years, but lockdown offered her a completely different opportunity and has given her a chance to return to her first passion – gardening.
She is combining her new garden business with her other day job as a crime fiction writer and already the two paths have crossed.
Ms Talbot found her garden to be her saviour during lockdown and this is why she is backing The Herald’s Garden of Remembrance campaign to create a space to reflect and remember Scotland’s victims of coronavirus.
Read more: 100th donation is made to help boost memorial campaign
The Herald launched a campaign with a £50,000 fundraising target to build a memorial garden in the stunning grounds of Glasgow’s Pollok Country Park. Just days after we launched the campaign in May, Glasgow City Council stepped forward with the offer of a site in the park.
Ms Talbot said: “I think the memorial garden is a lovely idea. Gardens can be a place for reflection and somewhere you can go to remember. You will never forget a loved one, but sometimes having a neutral place to go away from it all can help.
“I know what my garden has meant to me in lockdown. It can be a place of healing and nurturing. We have all been through lockdown, but some people are still suffering and grieving so having somewhere to go is very important.”
Theresa Talbot found her garden was a place of comfort in lockdown
For a travel bulletin announcer lockdown meant there was not so much to report as commuter routes saw reduced traffic. It has meant Ms Talbot was able to concentrate on her writing career, she has had three crime novels published, the trilogy The Lost Children, The Quiet Ones and Keep Her Silent, and has just completed her fourth book, while connecting with her beloved garden.
“I put myself through a course around 15 years when I did garden design, but I didn’t go into it full time,” said Ms Talbot.
“I have always loved pottering around in my garden and changing things and people have often asked for my help and advice. So I decided in lockdown this was the time to do something and the new business was born.
“I called it TT Loves Plants as that is exactly what it is. I get excited about plants in the way some women get excited about a pair of shoes. Garden nurseries are like sweetie shops to me. I am always moving plants around - they could be in the ground for six months or six minutes.
“Working with plants was something I had wanted to do for some time and lockdown gave me that chance. I put a message on a few social media sites asking if anyone would be interested in some garden advice or consultations and the response was fantastic to the extent I am now fully booked for August.”
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Clarkston-based Ms Talbot offers a consultations and can come to view a garden but has also had inquiries from further afield and has been able to give advice remotely.
“I ask people to send pictures and we go through what they like, “ she added. “It doesn’t matter what size they have or it could be a concrete jungle – I think people are just more interested in their outdoor spaces now. They may have been working from home in lockdown and looking at the same area for weeks and they might just think what could they do with it.
“I think people should just have what they like. There shouldn’t be any snobbery attached to it – I’ve even got plastic fairies in my garden. Where I can help is identifying plants that might work well or give them colour all year round from January to December.”
Theresa Talbot loves to potter and move plants around in her garden
As a successful author of a crime trilogy series, gardening could be seen as a way of switching off but sometimes there is a crossover.
She added: “For me gardening can be the complete antidote to crime writing which allows you to vent your spleen and get everything out. It has been lovely to get out and about for walks again and it has been nice to travel a bit further lately. I was on a walk in the Borders and looking at the lovely scenery and pathways, but then my mind wandered to what would happen if a body was found there. I also look at people when I am out and wonder what is their story, what crime might they have committed that we might never know about it. It is sometimes difficult to switch off from it.”
Theresa Talbot used lockdown to start her own gardening business
She has also had crime writers ask her for horticultural advice.
“I’ll often get a phone call from a crime writer who is in the middle of a scene asking what plants might be in bloom in June in Inverness for example. They are looking for attention to detail and now they know they can come to me for an answer.”
For more information go to www.TTlovesplants.co.uk
To donate to The Herald’s memorial garden campaign go to: gofundme.com/herald-garden-of-remembrance. You can also send donations via post to The Herald Garden of Remembrance Campaign, Herald & Times, 125 Fullarton Drive, Glasgow G32 8FG. If you would like to help, send an email to: memorialgarden@theherald.co.uk
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