Adam Mars-Jones - Cedilla

Majors have popped up at the edge of my life from time to time — starting with the Air Force colleague and friend of Dad’s, Kit Draper, who was officially known as the Mad Major. All of them have been somewhat eccentric, though I doubt if the rank of Major actively generates quirks. More likely it’s the highest military position compatible with independence of mind.

I wrote to Major Howell asking for his terms of business. When he wrote back I felt that my choice of him had immediately been vindicated. His ‘catalogue’ was made up of sheets of foolscap paper. There was an introductory paragraph, and then a bald list of the Latin names of plant seeds he had in stock, typed in capital letters. Major Howell’s seed exchange was totally egalitarian. Seeds were seeds were seeds were seeds. Common grass seed might sit next to the most exotic orchids, and the strychnine tree be cheek by jowl with meadowsweet — but only if their alphabetical position dictated that arrangement. In Major Howell’s pages, breeding meant nothing, family meant nothing, and size meant nothing. CYMBIDIUM and COCOS NUCIFERA were in hailing distance of one another on the page, although Cymbidium is an orchid plant with seed so fine it blows away at the slightest puff of wind, travelling almost infinitely far, and Cocos nucifera is a monster.

This was not a conventional business at all but something described as a ‘seed exchange’, a loving and utopian project. We were already living in the Age of Aquarius, though we didn’t yet know it. Rumours trickled across the Atlantic with the news that on the New York stage naked performers mixed with the audience at the end of a show called Hair , and in Surrey a military man was running a commercial enterprise as if it was some sort of anarchist commune for seeds.

I passed the list across to Dad, who read through it closely before declaring, ‘The chap’s obviously potty. Take this item, for heaven’s sake …’ — he pointed out a name on the list — ‘it’s so darn common I only have to open the kitchen window and lean out and it’s almost in the palm of my hand. And Cocos nucifera … Have you any idea what that is?’

‘Is it a kind of palm?’

‘Not bad, not bad,’ Dad said. ‘ Cocos nucifera is a coconut. Nothing more, nothing less. Why buy a coconut from this chappie? I can get a coconut in Maidenhead!’

‘I think …’ I said, instinctively defending the Major’s eccentricities, ‘the Major is referring to the fact that it may be a mere coconut, but that doesn’t stop it being a seed. Why should the poor coconut be banned from a seed-list? A seed is what it is. Aren’t you always telling me not to make the mistake of despising a plant because it’s common?’

Dad just grunted, but soon his eye fell on something more interesting. There were some fascinating items on the list, in among the common grasses and fairground prizes. There were plenty of Drosera species which we didn’t have, and soon we were making a shopping list of our own. Dad decided that we shouldn’t deprive ourselves of some interesting specimens just because the man was potty. Major Howell had converted me instantly, but it took Dad a little longer to come round. He came to mock and stayed to fill in an order form. Soon the Cromers, father and son, were regular customers.

The introductory paragraph of the list explained how the system operated. All seeds in the list were equal, and as far as Major Howell was concerned one item could never be more (or less) equal than any other item — even if one was the size of a cannonball and the other a sprinkling of dusty spores. So you could choose whichever seed you wanted. As far as I remember these were the rules:

Seeds shall be ordered in units. A UNIT shall be six packets of seed plus a GRATIS specimen. A customer who orders two units shall be entitled to a third GRATIS unit, as well as the GRATIS specimens included in the units themselves.

If you have seed which is not in the list, you may exchange it for any item in the list when ordering one or more units. Major Howell does not give cash for seeds.

A packet of seeds (which might contain many seeds, or a few, or just one, depending on size and rarity) cost 5d, so that each unit cost 3/-. It was all splendidly idealistic but also terribly practical. Dad and I ordered two units from the list. I tried to scribble ‘ Cocos nucifera ’ on the form while he wasn’t looking, but furtiveness is not my forte and he found me out. He wouldn’t wear it. ‘Besides,’ he added, ‘I hope you realise that the old boy has to pay postage costs. In his eyes all seeds may be equal, but I doubt if the GPO will see it that way. Coconuts are heavy items. It will be expensive and inconvenient for him. And I know exactly why you’re trying this on. You enjoy creating maximum inconvenience with everything you do. That’s you all over, John! But not this time.’ I don’t think my psychology was really so complicated. I hadn’t wanted Cocos nucifera in the first place until I was told I couldn’t have it. Then it became a project and the thing I wanted above all others. It’s a mental mechanism which has served me well, all in all — it got me walking, didn’t it?

When I looked wounded, Dad suggested that we add an extra packet of Drosera seed to our order. Trying to get around the rules paid the usual dividends.

I can’t say Dad was entirely wrong about me. I was always experimenting, taking things to their limit. Wherever I was I would try to turn my surroundings into a laboratory, whether I was making soapsuds from nowhere in CRX, performing mantras in toilets or creating mouth-vacuums in school-issue Bic Biro pens in Vulcan so that the ink got everywhere. There are only so many ways I can play, and this is one of the best. And to be even fairer than fair, to be fair to myself now that I’ve been fair to Dad, I think that he was a little blind in rejecting Cocos nucifera out of hand. It wasn’t long before we learned that botanic samples of the seed are very different from the cultivars in the supermarkets.

Over that tantalising ledge

The seeds arrived. They nearly all germinated. The Drosera did particularly well, and soon we had the beginnings of an impressive collection. We were encouraged to order a packet of Drosophyllum Lusitanicum , the Portuguese Sundew, the uncoöperative Holy Grail of our carnivorous plant-rearing. Good seed added to Dad’s refined gardening technique produced astounding results, and Major Howell’s name began to smell like a rose.

If there was a slow submarine detonation in progress underneath the whole established culture, then the ripples had lapped against my wheelchair and I too was restless. In terms of doing things for myself my best bet, perhaps my only chance, was independent motion, even if that meant also losing Broyan. I would have to learn to drive. The Wrigley was all very well for getting me to the railway station and the concert venue, and for menacing pop stars, but I needed a bigger engine if I was to reach escape velocity.

This is a standard teenage urge, but in my case it couldn’t be fulfilled in a series of gradual stages. My fellows faced a smooth ramp of choices — driving lessons, borrowing the family car, finally getting their own. I, though, would have needed stilts to reach the pedals of the family car. I would have to do the whole thing in a single mighty flying leap, and I would need my own vehicle from the word go.

Or the word stop. Mum, being a non-driver herself, was likely to be discouraging. Dad was unpredictable, but certainly couldn’t afford to buy me a car. I would have to organise an embassy to Granny.

The whole family seemed to be a complex mechanism for frustrating desires — like the machines at fairgrounds which Peter had always liked so much, aligning the mechanical grab directly over a desired trinket, so that it couldn’t miss, and then pressing a button, and watching as it did. Or glass cases full of pennies stacked so thickly on ledges that a payout was inevitable. Trustingly Peter would send penny after penny down the chute to trigger the avalanche that never came. And now, despite my poor coördination, it was my turn to work the family machine, to send the grab down towards the elusive prize of a car, or push the necessary funds over that tantalising ledge. If there was no jackpot there could be no driving licence, and my life would never broaden out from the straits I was in.