Tony Newton做了35年的普通開業醫生。但有時候,他說話時,你會突然想,他的工作生涯是不是作為一個維多利亞時代的校長度過的。
因為他從不忌諱對那些不謹慎、不服從分子施加一些鐵腕。
“他們需要管理,你知道的。他們之中總是有一些惡棍,”他說著,眼睛瞇起來,擺了擺手指。“所以你得告訴他們誰才是掌權的。叫他們看看誰是老大。”
Tony Newton spent 35 years as a GP. Yet sometimes, when he's talking, you momentarily wonder if he'd spent his working life as a Victorian-era schoolmaster.
For he isn't afraid to impose a little iron discipline on the unwary or the unwilling.
"They want to take control, you know. There's a bit of thug in all of them," he says, his eyes narrowing, his finger wagging. "So you've got to tell them who's in charge. Show them who's boss."
獲獎:托尼和瑪麗.牛頓的花園凝聚了20年愛的勞作。
那些危險分子是誰呢,誰需要教訓?是一幫本地混混?一群整個下午都在本地火車站抽煙的小青年?
不。他所說的,是他后花園里的灌木叢。尤其是那一群絢爛的槭屬植物——楓樹——它們那發脆的、閃亮的葉子變成了深深的銅紅色,在今天燦爛的秋日暖陽里熠熠閃爍。
托尼完全沒有時間來多愁善感:他和他的妻子瑪麗在他們的花園中種的這3000株植物,每一棵都必須“掙得自己的位置,用自己的方式回報”,要不然就會受到即時的懲罰——被趕出這片土地。
等等。在后花園里種3000棵植物?
沒錯。而且這不是由一隊專業園丁打理的豪華古宅。這只是一個普通的郊區后園,緊鄰著這對夫妻價值360000英鎊的中產階級房子,但現在的它是非同尋常的。
Award-winning: Tony and Marie Newton's garden has been a labour of love for over 20 years
Who are the menaces who need some sense knocked into them? A local gang? The bunch of teenagers who spend their afternoons smoking in the local railway station?
No. He's talking about the shrubs in his back garden. In particular, a group of glorious acers — maples — whose crisp, shiny leaves have turned such a deep, coppery red that they are positively glowing in the glorious autumn sunshine today.
For Tony there's no room for sentimentality: every one of the 3,000 plants he and his wife Marie have planted in their garden must "earn its place and pay its way" or risk instant punishment by being whipped out of the ground.
Hold on a moment. Three thousand plants in one back garden?
Quite so. And this is no stately home maintained by an army of professional gardeners. It's an ordinary suburban back garden, perched behind the couple's £360,000 pebble-dashed home, which has been turned into something quite extraordinary.