When I was about nine, I had to write a composition in English class. I looked at the title: ‘My Garden’ and thought about my garden at home. It was a raised bed roughly a foot wide and about six feet long at the front of the house. The rest of the garden was a patio-like area, the surface of which was bumpy, uneven and mossy in most places. My mother made several attempts to grow plants, but the clay soil made it difficult. A plant which she called the “4 o’clock flower” was the only stalwart in the garden. In short, my garden was rather uninspiring, but I had to write about it.
I wrote about a beautiful and colourful garden. I wrote about planting and watering, digging and weeding. I wrote about the flowers that grew there: daisies and buttercups and sunflowers. There were tulips and orange blossoms, and of course, roses. These were in abundance, with rambling roses which shone a striking purple after dark. But my favourite were the daffodils and primroses, which were the brightest red and pink.
I wrote about how they bloomed so frequently that our house was filled with freshly cut flowers each day, and the scent of these flowers from my garden was stronger than any perfume worn by any teacher at school.
Confidently, I handed in my work. When I got home, I thought to ask my mother if we could grow daffodils and primroses in our small patch at home. She explained that it would not work because it was simply too hot to grow successfully in Singapore. These plants grew only in colder climates. The idea of making our garden cool enough crossed my mind, but I realised that I was in trouble.
Imagine my dismay… I had lied in my English composition, and the teacher would know that I had no such garden after all. I would be found out. How devastating, especially when I had been so confident of doing well. My mother tried to reassure me by explaining that the teacher would be interested only in how well I wrote: if I used the correct spelling and grammar, if my story made sense, and she would not be interested if the actual flowers really grew in my garden as I had described. I was not persuaded.
All weekend I worried. All of Monday and Tuesday I avoided my teacher’s eye. Finally on Wednesday our English exercise books were returned. I opened mine to the page which contained my fibs. Wow! The teacher had given me top marks, with a “Very Good” written in red at the bottom of the page. My mother was right after all.
Ten years later I saw for myself in Essex, great and several clumps of daffodils standing upright and without protest as a blanket of snow tried – and failed – to smother and cover these brave blossoms. Gold and yellow, I smiled to myself: not red and pink.