Percy Thrower - Broadcasting and Business Ventures

Broadcasting and Business Ventures

For many years Percy Thrower was the leading face and voice of British gardening on television and radio. He was credited by Alan Titchmarsh with inspiring him to take up gardening.

Godfrey Baseley, the presenter of a Midland regional BBC radio programme, Beyond the Back Door, spotted his enthusiasm and talents and he was offered a regular slot on the programme. The first TV series with which he was associated was Country Calendar, followed by Out and About. When colour television came along, this programme was renamed Gardeners' World. He became nationally known through presenting these programmes and regularly presented Gardeners' World from 1969 until 1976.

He was also the gardener on the children's programme Blue Peter from 1974 until 1987, appearing in over 100 broadcasts, making him the longest-serving Blue Peter gardener. One of his best remembered achievements was establishing the Blue Peter garden at BBC TV Centre, persuading numerous celebrities to give up a few hours every week to work in it.

In 1983, the Italianite garden was destroyed by vandals, ruining all of Thrower's work and leaving him desolate. A tabloid journalist later approached one of the purported vandals with a picture of a sobbing Thrower, asking him how he felt.

In 1963 he built his own house near Shrewsbury, called "The Magnolias", on land he acquired with a friend in the small village of Merrington, 6 miles (9.7 km) north west of Shrewsbury. This gave him a garden of about one and a half acres to "play with", something which he had never had before. The garden subsequently became the location for some of the episodes of Gardeners' World. He opened the garden to the public in 1966, and this became an annual event to raise money for charity.

In 1967 he became involved with the development of what was one of the first garden centres, Syon Park, near Brentford, Middlesex, owned by the Duke of Northumberland and backed by Plant Protection, a division of ICI, who had leased 50 acres (200,000 m2) from the Duke. The centre was a success at first but then sales tailed off and Thrower left the project. In 1970, in partnership with Duncan Murphy, he bought the firm of Murrell's of Shrewsbury and turned it into the Percy Thrower Garden Centre.

He retired in 1974 from the post of Superintendent of Parks as Shrewsbury and started a weekly column for the Daily Mail in 1975. He also wrote for several other papers, notably the Daily Express and the Sunday Express. He wrote for the magazine Amateur Gardening and also wrote many books, which were published by Collingbridge and later Hamlyn.

The BBC summarily dropped Thrower when in 1975 he agreed to a contract with Plant Protection, a subsidiary of ICI, for a series of commercials. He did this in the full knowledge of what the repercussions would be with the BBC, and later said it was the best contract he ever signed.

As a television personality he appeared with Morecambe and Wise (1971) and Benny Hill. He was also the subject of a "This is Your Life" programme in 1976.

In 1976 he gave a lecture to the Royal Institution titled "Changing Fashions in Gardening", and in 1977 wrote his memoirs, titled My Lifetime of Gardening. The same year the Royal Horticultural Society awarded their highest honour, the Victoria Medal of Honour, to him. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1984.

He also became involved in hosting gardening tours in Europe, with travel agent Harold Sleigh. They established the Percy Thrower Floral Tours Company, chartering ships for lecture cruises and was also involved in English Gardening Weekends. On one of these he was taken ill, and a decline in his health set in. Eventually Hodgkin’s disease was diagnosed. He made his last recording for Blue Peter from hospital one week before he died in the Royal Hospital, Wolverhampton on 18 March 1988 and his ashes were buried in the churchyard at Leaton, near Bomere Heath, Shropshire, where he lived.