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He was definitely not rich, but would have been very offended, and quite rightly, had anyone called him poor. As cricket captain, football secretary and collector for the Foresters he was a person of some small consequence, and as controller of a locally remarkable garden--the Old Doctor having made it a sort of legend in the district--he was well up in his profession and had done particularly well in the important annual flower shows.

He and I were still congratulating ourselves, not too privately, on our Finest Single Bloom award at the big town rose show, when a particularly lucky President Hoover had done the trick for us.

Sam had left the jam factory gardens at Heath some time before and had come to work in ours, where he was boss of his time, his acres, and incidentally his old grandfather, whom he refers to firmly as "my assistant." There was, and is, nothing whatever to stop him becoming Chairman of the Parish Council or local representative on either of the other Central Councils in time, if he is so minded.