MCQ'S GROW UP: GERALD STRATFORD
Most folks picture pretty accurately their retirement years before it actually happens. They may plan to move to the countryside, start a new hobby, get a dog, or else — who knows? Everyone plans for retirement differently, but all have plans. And as much as Gerald Stratford somehow plotted his, he surely couldn’t have imagined one thing: that he’d become an influencer.
Indeed, when Gerald moved to the Cotswolds together with his partner Elizabeth in a homely little bungalow where he turned their backward from a blank canvas to a garden with greenhouses and a shed — his cave, he calls it — he built with the help of his nephew, little did he know he’d go viral online. After a chat with a fellow gardener who told him how some other keen gardeners shared their crops on Twitter, Gerald decided he, too, would tweet. One day, Elizabeth took a photograph of him with his ready-to-harvest spuds in which he looked rather serene and happy, his outfit consisting of a monochromatic washed red tee-and-trousers combination and a pair of black Crocs. “Nothing special,” Gerald tells us about the picture. “Just lovely potatoes.”
A very simple photo that ended up being liked 78000 times, and gained him an extra 9800 followers in less than 48 hours. “A short while after posting it, the phone started buzzing and pinging above the norm. At some point I thought of hiding it,” he says, adding with a laugh, “Didn’t know I could silence it.”
Asked about why he thinks he’s gone viral, Gerald believes it might have to do with the fact people had enough of the bad news when Covid first hit, and that his positive vibe came as a refreshing contrast. “I can’t really pinpoint the exact reason, but at the time we were in and around the pandemic. It was a lonely, frightening world, and I think people enjoyed seeing me doing something, and smiling about it. I’m always positive in what I do. My glass is always half full, never half empty,” he says.
Another thing that may have played a part into Gerald’s mainstream reach is just how impressively massive the harvested vegetables posted on his feed are. A single cabbage he grew can cover the entire table it’s set on. At their peak his marrows weigh about 42 pounds. His leeks picked in early September, meanwhile, were almost touching the ground when held close to his chest. He does so not out of a desire to break any Guiness records or win competitions, but out of personal ambition. “If I can grow something just one inch bigger than my previous best, then I’m happy. I just pat meself on the back and move on. It’s really given me the bit between my teeth… It's nice to grow big veg,” Gerald says.
Being the influencer that he is now, Gerald partook in MCQ’s latest icon GROW UP as a model. We caught up with him to talk big veg, his mottos, and the stuff that keeps him going.
Hiya Gerald, thanks for talking to us. Before dedicating yourself to gardening, is there anything from your past that was related to it?
Well, I’ve always been a gardener. Me dad taught me and my brother when we were young the values of growing vegetables. That always stuck with me, and wherever I’ve been my garden’s been just as important as the house. I see it as part of my property maintenance if you like.
I grew up in a generation where food’s always been accessible in industrial quantities. But when you were growing up, was it common for people to eat food from their gardens?
I’m 73 now, and grew up in a different culture than yours where there were no supermarkets. You had butchers, bakers, and fruit and veg shops. We were just coming out of the second world war, and so everyone was hungry and gardening to feed their family. It was much easier, actually, to grow your veg than going to town. Not everybody had a vehicle, only the rich had a vehicle in the 50s. It was common sense to grow vegetables.
I saw that you fished a lot throughout your life, and caught quite a few impressive catches. Did that have anything to do with your current mania for growing the biggest vegetables you can?
Yes, I fished as a hobby, and was quite successful at it. In 1984 I won a fly fishing championship. But when Elizabeth and I moved to the Cotswolds I had enough of it. It can get lonely. And given that me and Liz both love gardening, it just made sense to cut back on the fishing. It’s true, though, that when you go fishing you want to catch the heaviest fish, and I wondered if I could do the same with my vegetables. The rest is history, I suppose.
What are you doing on a daily basis to reach these goals?
Everyday I look at every inch of my garden. I keep a journal, I’m a dairy person. I try to do the same thing every year and try to do things approximately at the same time, whether it’s looking at the soil’s fertility or when’s the optimal time to plant seeds. A gardener never has time out. When you’re not growing, you’re preparing the soil, the compost, etc. There’s always something to do. I have seeds that have been growing since last December.
What do you do with all these veggies? Are you a cook?
I can cook, yes. Elizabeth is a very good cook, too. She likes it. We never waste any of our vegs. We freeze, we pickle, we make chutneys, I make cider with apples. If there’s any sort of spare, my family or Liz’s family get their share. When there are surpluses of veg, which we always get, we donate to the local nursing home. Otherwise I compost everything, to try to put it back into the land. And besides my garden I’ve got two allotments. There, there are footpaths which run parallel to the allotments and sometimes I’ll go up there and do nothing but talking with others about all sorts of things growing. Now my aim in life is to get everybody gardening. If somebody stops me on the allotment and they want to talk about my onions or carrots or cabbages, I’ll cut one, give it to them and let them go home with it. A fresh vegetable is better than any vegetable you can buy in a shop.
Given that you’re aiming to grow the biggest vegetables, one could think you wouldn’t give away your secrets… but you seem to be an open book.
I haven’t got any secrets. They’re in my book, if anything. But anybody can grow a big carrot, or a big cabbage. Perseverance might be the answer. You have to try, don’t you? The more you try, the more it becomes natural.
Have you gotten used to being an influencer?
It took a lot of getting used to it I must say. I’ve just been a normal man, going about my life, and all of a sudden I’ve created something people want. Which is brilliant, but sometimes I do question myself. I just make sure not to get ahead of myself, and be someone I’m not. I do love what’s happening, though, and as long as it makes me and other people smile, I may continue. There’s an old saying that goes, “Smile, and the world smiles with you. Cry, and you cry alone.”
I’m curious to hear more about your personal style. In that picture of you that went viral, you seemed content and at peace and were also well put together. You do give some sort of importance to the way you dress, am I right?
Thank you for that, really. I like fashion. I was a 60s young man, with Carnaby Street, The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, all that sort of thing. Just because you’re an old gardener doesn’t mean you don’t have to look smart. If your vegetables are nice and pretty, be pretty with them. I like clothing, but I don’t waste money on it. I’m not rich enough for that. But I do try to buy nice clothes that look nice on me. I’ve got clothes which are 20, 30 years old. I have this pair of Brogues which I bought in 1992 and they're as good as new. I polish them, clean them, take the laces off and clean the laces, put them back on. If you’ve got something nice and you look after it, it will last a lot longer.
Some clothes age well and really do end up looking better through time, in my opinion…
Definitely. It pays to look after what you wear, and it repays itself by looking after you. I say the same to my vegetables. I talk to my veg when I’m on my own, and they repay my kindness by being good with me and growing well. If something doesn’t grow, I never get angry or upset. I just say goodbye, and try again.
What’s a typical day like for you?
It all depends, I’ve always got something to do in my cave. I’ve got music, I love music. I’ve got a radio. Alexa’s out there. She plays all my types of music. At this moment I like blues singer Juzzie Smith. He’s sort of a one man band. I was hoping this winter to make a diddley bow. One string guitar. I like to sing. If I could play a one string diddley bow I’ll give it a go. I think I could make it. I’ve got an old amplifier and I’d like to electrify it. But seriously, I’m a deep thinker. I think 24 hours a day, sometimes I’ll wake up in the night and I’ll sit on the side of the bed thinking about a project the next day or something I’ve just finished, how to improve it. I don’t want to be the best… I want to be the best I can be.
Gerald’s book BIG VEG is now available to buy in the UK and you can find it here.
