The Surprising Life of Constance Spry Read online

  Connie particularly enjoyed walking around a client’s garden discussing their borders and shrubs. Several invited her to use flowers from their own gardens, and she loved to have the run of a new garden for picking. Sometimes the head gardener would at first be less forthcoming, but then soften when he got talking with Connie who was so evidently an expert gardener. She admitted, though, ‘all the time I have an eye on the flowers that will be useful to cut for the house.’

  These were happy times, when the business was still manageable enough for Connie to know most of her customers. There were the inevitable difficult ones, however, all of whom Connie treated with courtesy and kid gloves, ‘as a shopkeeper should’, for the customer was always right – or nearly always. Once, the owner of a grand house in Curzon Street called in Spry flower decorators, then decided she did not care for the style of the finished display. She would have preferred some carnations, Connie’s most despised flowers, with asparagus fern. Connie and Sheila returned to the house and immediately dismantled the vases, piled the flowers into a taxi and drove back to the shop. Connie was white with fury: ‘Any ordinary flower shop would do it for her,’ she snorted. ‘I won’t. I only want to do exciting things.’ Within a couple of years she was invited back, and arranged for every party held thereafter.

  Connie had a gift for relieving tense situations, and her sense of humour was legendary. She often impersonated a difficult customer, to gales of laughter, after he or she had left the shop. But sometimes her delight in the absurd would fail her. On one occasion she was asked to do a ‘divorce party’ with flowers arranged inside plaster skulls. Connie was disgusted, and politely declined the commission. But appreciative and loyal customers were treated impeccably. If one of them decided at short notice to throw a party, the team stayed on to get the flowers done. Nothing was ever too much for Flower Decorations, even though the hours were impossibly long and the pay was still terrible. According to Sheila Young:

  Someone once asked us if we felt bitter that we were paid so little whilst seeing so much affluence. It is true we were paid little, and we worked hard, but I loved to watch the expansion of the firm and to become part of the creative art that was developing. Working with flowers and in such good company gave rise to a great deal of pleasure, laughter and companionship.

  Connie praised, charmed and encouraged her team, mostly young girls, and kept them in love with her and their work – ‘a thrilling occupation, continually doing what you really enjoy with a perpetual change of material’, as Robbo described it. Connie was always there working alongside them, twisting wire, clipping, stripping and dunking. She produced delicious cream cakes to make up for missing meal breaks, and entertained everyone with stories and jokes. Sheila recalled: ‘It was one perpetual party, she made everything seem such fun.’ Several of them, Sheila in particular, were so skilled and well trained that they went on to run their own successful businesses.

  If anyone had suggested to Connie that she was exploiting her staff, she would have been horrified. She paid what she could afford and she trained and cared for them, if not financially, at least by making them feel appreciated and fulfilled in their work. Her standards were extremely high. She took immense pride in her team and would defend them against any criticism. Her instinct for finding the right people was rarely wrong, and in the one or two instances when it failed her she was ruthless in dismissing the person concerned. But she could never do the unpleasant task herself; any disciplinary action was deputed to Val Pirie, who was known to be a strict disciplinarian and regarded with equal measures of fear and dislike.

  Val, who had less talent for flowers than the others, began to concentrate on running the business with Shav. The two were often closeted together at weekends when he instructed her in accountancy and business management, while Connie spent nights away in London working or as a weekend guest. The relationship between Val and Shav, which began on that Christmas walk two years before, had developed into an affair. It is hard to see quite what her attraction was. Although Connie was utterly immersed in her business, it must be assumed that by this time she was aware of the affair, but it is not known what she felt about it, or how she handled it.

  Connie was never open or honest about her private life – it had become too complicated. Shav had not anticipated that the lively and creative woman who had first attracted him would become such a driven, single-minded person. He had no wish to enter high society and did not want to hang around at parties while Connie was fêted and praised. He liked to work in his office and then return to his quiet life at home in the country. Most of all, he loathed the homosexual clique in which Connie found so many of her closest friends. She was caught in a trap of her own making, a divorcee living with a man to whom she was not married, who was now conducting an affair with her business assistant and friend. Even her name, by now so well known, was not actually hers. If ‘Mrs Spry’ left Shav, the whole story would come out and the scandal would ruin her; besides which, she sincerely loved Shav and their life together, and it appears that he loved her. Taking a lesson from her upper-class customers, Connie turned a blind eye. This sort of thing was not uncommon, after all, and she kept her own counsel, pouring all her passion and energy into her work.

  Despite any friction caused by Shav’s affair with Val, when the lease on Abinger expired and they were forced to move, Connie and Shav opted to remain in the country rather than move up to town. They found a house on a much grander scale at Colney Park near Aldenham in Hertfordshire. The garden, which was also much bigger than at Abinger, had been planted by a connoisseur and Connie recalled the thrill of exploring her new garden and finding all kinds of rare and delightful surprises. In the rough grass in the wilder parts she found unusual autumn crocuses and colchicums. ‘It seemed’, she wrote, ‘as though the original owner had purposely tried to forget he had made these plantings so that he might have the pleasure of coming on the flowers unaware.’ There was a pergola of Clematis montana, woodland filled with flowers in spring and, overhanging a stream, alder trees whose stems Connie would pick in the depths of winter, bringing them indoors where the catkins came out: ‘the arrangement had the beauty of an etching.’

  Nearby at Aldenham Court were the famous garden and nurseries of the late Vicary Gibbs, who had collected plants from all over the world. When they heard that the nursery was closing down and there was to be a plant sale, Connie and Trower, who with his wife Gladys as cook had followed the Sprys to Aldenham, rushed over and acquired several rarities including some mature magnolias and two ‘very beautiful, rare and unusual plants’: a Chinese shrub, Decaisnea fargesii or ‘dead man’s fingers’, which Connie was particularly attracted to for its strange fruits ‘like purple broad beans’; and Sinofranchetia chinensis, which bears long slim bunches of amethyst-like fruits. She also found a wonderful stock of snowberries in the sale which, she noticed, were much more thickly clustered with white wax-like berries than the usual type. She had found a unique variety, eventually marketed by her friend Mr Beckett at Sunningdale Nurseries as Symphoricarpos laevigatus ‘Constance Spry’, an honour of which she was immensely proud.

  The gardens at Colney Park were reorganized to include well-managed cutting beds and Trower was at last given two under-gardeners to assist him. But Connie was still very much a hands-on gardener and she and Trower still argued ceaselessly. She would snatch the spade from him and move a plant herself to make a point, or chop away at some poor plant she thought had ‘got too big for its boots’. She often wrote about the comfort she found in getting earth on her hands or in holding a bundle of dripping flowers in her arms. She would be out in the garden in all weathers – in soft ‘Irish’ rain, sharp white frosts, full blowsy sunshine – and only reluctantly came in to change for a meal. Guests were amused to find Connie serving dinner still with traces of earth under her nails and muddy shoes peeping from under her evening dress. Nobody minded, as she kept up a vibrant conversation on the merits of some new plant she had found, a ne
w way to ‘murder slugs’ or the eccentric behaviour of a client. She was an inveterate gossip, indiscreet and cheerfully outspoken about most things and most people. However, friends who knew her well were aware that behind her outgoing cheerfulness lurked all kinds of fears and worries. Beverley Nichols wrote:

  She was almost painfully sensitive because she always had an extraordinary illusion that she might be boring people when, in fact, she was bewitching them. When she forgot to be nervous she lit up and twinkled all over so that you felt she was dressed in sequins . . . oddly enough, she had a spark of naughtiness – as though she had sometimes lingered outside the dining-room door to listen to the gentlemen when they were letting their hair down over the port.

  Only her own private life was kept firmly behind closed doors.

  The demand for flowers for the shop and for her clients was insatiable, and Connie found that even with what she grew in her own garden, the commercial flower markets and private estates, they were only just keeping pace. She and her ‘buyer’, George Foss, were constantly looking for new sources and together they attended as many Royal Horticultural Society shows in Vincent Square as they could. Connie adored these annual ‘great floral festivals’ and was a keen active member from early on. She would tour the stands of specialist nurserymen, many of whom became regular suppliers and friends with whom she kept up lengthy correspondence. Connie and Foss would stay until late in the afternoon of the second day’s showing, when many exhibitors sold plants off cheaply rather than have to cart them home again. They would buy, say, a whole stand of lilies; the flowers would adorn the next wedding or party and the precious bulbs would go into the borders of the large walled garden at Colney Park.

  For Connie the Chelsea Flower Show was the great event of the year. She and Shav had been attending ever since their mutual passion for gardening began. The RHS had held shows in Chiswick and later Kensington since 1833, but later it was decided that these venues were not sufficiently central to attract enough visitors. In 1913 the first Spring Show took place in the grounds of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, where it proved a huge success. It continued there even through the war, except for 1917 and 1918, and was back in full swing in the 1920s when the famous Chelsea tea parties were introduced and royal visits resumed. As her business increased, Connie found many new suppliers through flower shows, especially among the ordinary gardeners and nurserymen, whom she always favoured. They kept her in touch with the world of horticulture, with new developments, new plants and innovations in garden design and cultivation. Increasingly, this was where Connie felt she belonged, rather than in the pressured hothouse atmosphere of society functions. She particularly loved the camaraderie of the great marquee where nurserymen, hybridists and ordinary gardeners met on common ground, where royalty, lords and ladies, bishops and politicians could be found deep in horticultural conversation with head gardeners, city clerks, housewives and shopkeepers. It was the ‘glorious mix’ that Connie always thrived on, her ‘freemasonry of flowers’.

  During her visits to RHS shows at Chelsea and Vincent Square Connie got to know Sir William Lawrence, the Society’s Treasurer. He admired her work and suggested she apply for a stand at the Chelsea Flower Show. In 1932 the first Constance Spry stand appeared, on ‘Sundries Avenue’. Connie recalled the agonies of planning for Chelsea: ‘To gardeners and flower arrangers, Chelsea is a compound of pleasure and pain . . . the surfeit of pleasure in so much beauty, the frustration of not being able to afford all the plants one wanted, and the special torment of putting up a stand with sleepless nights spent worrying over the fear of producing something stale or dull.’ She always claimed that she never had any ideas until George Foss opened the back of the van and showed her what he had found, at which point she was inspired to create something utterly spontaneous and all her fears were forgotten:

  George Foss can find beauty in unexpected places . . . He could produce a rare fruit, a common vegetable, an exotic that makes you gasp, all with an air as if to say: ‘I can’t think what you were worrying about.’ For good measure he will add in a ‘rabbit-out-of-the hat’ tone that he has found some especially grand magnolia, or azalea, or pieris, or what you will, and the cup is full.

  Then she fell to, and with help from Sheila and Robbo the work began. In contrast to the fun-fair effect of some of the other exhibits there, Connie kept her stand simple and uncluttered. She would use her collection of huge alabaster urns to show just a couple of arrangements with such dramatic appeal that they would stand out in the small space allotted to her. One vase was usually white and green, with lilies and anthurium or magnolia; the other was filled with the soft pinks and mauves of lilac and iris, azalea and fruit blooms. Some visitors expected to see examples of living-room displays and Connie soon tired of explaining that they would be almost invisible to the tight-packed Chelsea crowd. ‘Of course the displays are large in size,’ she cried, ‘they have to be; of course we use interesting material when we can get it: after all, this is Chelsea.’ Every year she dreamed up something dramatic and surprising. Once the centrepiece was an old gilt font from which cascaded a mass of maidenhair fern, a plant she usually derided, but she wanted to show how even something less than ideal could be used to good creative effect. In later years she sometimes used the cut-glass mirrors that she had rescued from Atkinsons’ when it closed. For the 1936 show Connie created an enormous display in which she filled a vase with green foliage, green tomatoes, rhubarb and artichokes. The Daily Telegraph reported that the King and Queen visited the Constance Spry stand and were particularly impressed.

  Year after year, Connie created fresh and extraordinary arrangements. ‘She never looked back,’ a staff member said. ‘She was always looking towards the next great idea.’ Preparing for Chelsea was a huge strain and extra work for everyone. More often than not, Connie would return to the shop scarcely able to describe how that year’s effort had been received. Worn out and tearful with exhaustion from all their efforts, her disappointed staff would hear Connie excitedly announce, ‘Next year I know what we’ll do.’

  SEVEN

  Made for Happiness

  1932–1936

  4 January 1932

  Dear Gluck

  Three things.

  1. The camellias are marvellous.

  2. I am sending you herewith a feather of white velour, which I think is lovely.

  3. Edward and I are giving ourselves the pleasure of sending you up a ‘Mixed Bunch’ of white flowers for your Studio. I have commissioned my friend Mrs Spry to do it and to ring you up when certain flowers which I have asked for are procurable. She will probably lend you a white marble vase to put them in – she often brings her own when she does not know people’s own vases. I think she has a genius for flowers and you have a genius for paint, so that ought to make for happiness. Anyhow, we send them to you with our love and very deep appreciation of your sympathy in work.

  Bless you,

  Prudence Maufe

  Connie was away when the Maufe order was taken at the shop, and it was Val who was deputed to go to the artist Gluck’s house in Hampstead in North London to carry out the commission, a present to celebrate the new studio built for her by Edward Maufe. Val arrived with a Warwick vase and a box of white flowers – anthurium, amaryllis, arums and tulips. She remembered the place as being very grand. The maid who showed her in fetched a pedestal and a jug of water and Val got on with her work. Gluck eventually came in from the studio wearing smock and trousers, ‘looking extremely handsome and cross at being disturbed from painting’. She stood watching as Val deftly created a classic Spry arrangement. Suddenly she announced that she wanted to paint it. Val, who was quite used to the eccentricities of the rich and famous, finished the job and left her to it.

  Several days later a call came through to the shop from Gluck’s home. The flowers were wilting and the artist had not finished painting them. Someone was required to return to Hampstead and replenish the vase. As each week passed, the whole display h
ad to be replaced exactly as before, but even after some months the painting was still not complete. Connie grew more and more curious; she had learned that Gluck always wore men’s clothes, and there seemed to be a considerable amount of discreet gossip about her, too. She decided to go to Hampstead, check the flowers and meet the artist herself.

  Gluck’s real name, which even family and friends were forbidden to use, was Hannah Gluckstein. ‘No prefix, suffix or quotes,’ she demanded, not even a ‘Miss’ – just Gluck (as in duck). She came from a wealthy Jewish family: the Salmons and the Glucksteins had made their fortune in tobacco and their fame through ownership of the J. Lyons catering company with its tea shops and Corner Houses. Gluck grew up rebelling against her family as well as against the social and sexual conventions of the time. Her parents reluctantly allowed her to study at St John’s Wood Art School and she later spent time with the Newlyn School, the artists’ colony in Cornwall. By the age of twenty-one Gluck had cropped her hair, changed her name and begun to dress exclusively in men’s clothes. Her father despaired of her, but gave her a generous allowance all the same. Her mother once described her as having ‘a kink in the brain’ which she hoped would pass, but did not give up on Gluck, continuing to dominate her daughter and to interfere in her life.