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Daphne Ledward (born 1945 in Bradford), known as Daffers when she appeared on Sir Jimmy Young's show on BBC Radio 2, is an English garden designer and author and former gardening presenter for the BBC.
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Daphne Ledward (born 1945 in Bradford), known as Daffers when she appeared on Sir Jimmy Young's show on BBC Radio 2, is an English garden designer and author and former gardening presenter for the BBC.
She was born in Bradford in West Yorkshire. At the age of three she moved to Essex. Her parents separated and she moved with her mother to south Lincolnshire.
She attended Stamford High School, then a direct grant grammar school. She grew up in Easton on the Hill. [1] She passed nine O levels in 1961, under headmistress Miss Joyce Lomax [2] She played in a string quartet with Carolyn Bishop, Mary Nalson and Susan Capp, in the sixth form. [3] She left at the end of the lower sixth. She had originally wanted to become a vet, but in the 1960s such careers were not encouraged for women.
She began training as a quantity surveyor at the College of Estate Management via a correspondence course. However, she felt this was not the right course for her. She had some time in hospital, and decided that she wanted to work in the social occupations. She became a Welfare Assistant with Kesteven County Council. Six months later she became District Welfare Officer for South Kesteven. In 1971 there was a reorganisation in administration of the department she was working for and she decided to leave. She wrote short stories for women's and teenage magazines. [4]
She undertook a gardening correspondence course, and having got to know a nurseryman in 1972, she started her own business in landscape gardening. She originally wanted to design the gardens and let customers plant and change the landscaping themselves, but customers generally wanted the whole thing done for them. In 1973 she worked for Brian Ellis Mailing Services in Bedford, and in 1974 she started her own business, which sent plants by direct mail. The mail services were provided by the Bedford company. The company was not as lucrative as hoped for, so Ledward concentrated on landscape gardening. [4]
In 1980 Ledward became the gardening presenter for the newly established BBC Radio Lincolnshire; she appeared with Chris Olney on Monday afternoons, with The Answer Lies in the Soil. [5] [6]
In 1982 she became the first female panel-member of Radio 4's Gardeners' Question Time , [7] and in 1988 she answered gardening questions with Geoffrey Smith on Gardeners' Direct Line Postbag for BBC Leeds.; [8] on Sunday 20 February 1983 she appeared on Gardeners' Question Time at Long Bennington, with Bill Sowerbutts, hosted by Ken Ford (the presenter from 1977), recorded on Tuesday 8 February 1983; [9] [10] [11] other appearances on Gardeners Question Time included the United Reformed Church at Darras Hall (Ponteland, Northumberland) on 23 October 1983; [12] the church hall of Holy Ascension Church, Upton-by-Chester, recorded 4 January 1984; [13] [14] Barnack primary school hall, recorded on Wednesday 15 February 1984, broadcast 11 March 1984; [15] [16] Tewin Memorial Hall, recorded on 12 September 1984, broadcast on 14 October 1984; [17] [18] Munster Park Methodist Church Hall in Fulham, recorded on Thursday 18 April 1985, broadcast on 12 May 1985; [19] the South Holland Centre in Spalding, recorded on Thursday 30 May 1985, broadcast on 23 June 1985; [20] [21] and the Royal Oak, Ockbrook, recorded on Thursday 20 February 1986, broadcast on 2 March 1986. [22] [23]
She was also well known for being the resident gardening expert on Sir Jimmy Young's long running lunchtime show on BBC Radio 2 between 1988 and 2002. In 2001 she presented her own TV series, Garden Hopping, seen on BBC2. In 2002 she was co-presenter with Joe Swift of Grow to Eat. [8] Her BBC career ended in 2009. [7]
She has written gardening books, including The Idiot Gardener's Handbook. [24]
She married Anthony Twitchett in Bourne, Lincolnshire in 1976; in the 1970s she moved to Deeping St James. [25] [26]
Since 1992 she has been married to John Hands, [24] who was a sound engineer for BBC Midlands; she married in July 1992 at the Wesley Grove Methodist Church in Jersey. [27] They have a thatched cottage in Surfleet Seas End near Spalding, and keep greyhounds. [4]
Lincolnshire is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to the north, the North Sea to the east, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire and Rutland to the south, and Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire to the west. The county town is the city of Lincoln.
Grantham is a market town in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England, situated on the banks of the River Witham and bounded to the west by the A1 road. It lies some 23 miles (37 km) south of Lincoln and 22 miles (35 km) east of Nottingham. The population in 2016 was put at 44,580. The town is the largest settlement and the administrative centre of South Kesteven District.
Bourne is a market town and civil parish in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. It lies on the eastern slopes of the limestone Kesteven Uplands and the western edge of the Fens, 11 miles (18 km) north-east of Stamford, 12 miles (19 km) west of Spalding and 17 miles (27 km) north of Peterborough. The population at the 2011 census was 14,456. A 2019 estimate put it at 16,780.
Stamford is a town and civil parish in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. The population at the 2011 census was 19,701 and estimated at 20,645 in 2019. The town has 17th- and 18th-century stone buildings, older timber-framed buildings and five medieval parish churches. It is a frequent film location. In 2013 it was rated a top place to live in a survey by The Sunday Times. Its name has been passed on to Stamford, Connecticut, founded in 1641.
South Kesteven is a local government district in Lincolnshire, England, forming part of the traditional Kesteven division of the county. Its council is based in Grantham. The district also includes the towns of Bourne, Market Deeping and Stamford, along with numerous villages and surrounding rural areas.
BBC Radio Lincolnshire is the BBC's local radio station serving the county of Lincolnshire.
Market Deeping is a market town and civil parish in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England, on the north bank of the River Welland and the A15 road. The population of the town at the 2011 census was 6,008.
South Witham is a village and civil parish in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 1,533. It is situated 10 miles (16 km) south of Grantham, 10 miles east of Melton Mowbray and 10 miles (16 km) north of Oakham. The village is close to the Leicestershire and Rutland borders.
Lincolnshire is one of the few counties within the UK that still uses the eleven-plus to decide who may attend grammar school, in common with Buckinghamshire and Kent.
Castle Bytham is a village and civil parish of around 300 houses in South Kesteven, Lincolnshire, England. It is located 9 miles (14 km) north of Stamford and 9 miles (14 km) west of Bourne.The population was measured at 768 in 317 households at the 2011 census.
Spalding High School (SHS) is a grammar school for girls and a mixed sixth form located in Spalding, Lincolnshire, England.
The Deepings School is a coeducational secondary school and sixth form with academy status, located on Park Road in Deeping St James in Lincolnshire, England. As of April 2022, the school is attended by almost 1,500 pupils aged 11 to 18 taught by 90 teaching staff. It includes pupils from Stamford, Spalding, Langtoft, Baston, Bourne and the Deeping area.
Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School (KGGS) is a grammar school with academy status for girls in Grantham, Lincolnshire, established in 1910. It has over 1000 pupils ranging from ages 11 to 18, and has its own sixth form.
Rutland and Stamford was a county constituency comprising the area centred on the town of Stamford in Lincolnshire, and the county of Rutland. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, using the first-past-the-post voting system.
Grantham College is a further education and Sixth Form college in Grantham, Lincolnshire, England.
Grantham North Services is a service area operated by Moto located on the A1 at Gonerby Moor Roundabout, four miles north of Grantham in Lincolnshire, England. The service station has a main car park and coach/lorry park, off which is a BP petrol station.
The 2015 South Kesteven District Council election took place on 7 May 2015 to elect members of South Kesteven District Council in Lincolnshire, England. The whole council was up for election after boundary changes reduced the number of seats by two. The Conservative party stayed in overall control of the council.
The fifth set of elections to Kesteven County Council were held on Thursday, 7 March 1901. Kesteven was one of three divisions of the historic county of Lincolnshire in England; it consisted of the ancient wapentakes of Aswardhurn, Aveland, Beltisloe, Boothby Graffoe, Flaxwell, Langoe, Loveden, Ness, and Winnibriggs and Threo. The Local Government Act 1888 established Kesteven as an administrative county, governed by a Council; elections were held every three years from 1889, until it was abolished by the Local Government Act 1972, which established Lincolnshire County Council in its place.
Joseph Boothroyd Corby (1839–1913) was an English architect who worked in Stamford, Lincolnshire.
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