Following on from our post a few days ago about Frances Alexander, who stood for parliament here in the 1970s, she’s told us :
One last thing…. I met Lloyd George?s gardener on Rayleigh High Street. He shook my hand for five minutes and tears poured down his cheeks. ?Lloyd George would be proud of you? he said.
This is so unexpected. David Lloyd George was Liberal Prime Minister from 1916 to 1922, and died in Wales in 1945. Who was his gardener? Does anybody from Rayleigh know anything about him?
WOW Chris, I wonder if he has done your garden?
Hi Jeff, well I’m sure you meant it in a light-hearted way but it makes me wonder about my Mums garden. She used various gardeners over the years. If this chap had been David Lloyd George’s gardener was the end of DLG’s life, he could easily have been born around 1920 and could have been working as a jobbing gardener around here until the early 80s. Pure speculation though….
By the way, I believe Clement Attlee’s assistant political agent lives in Rayleigh too….
Did you know that Lloyd George was actually born in sunny Manchester? So he must have been a decent chap 😉
His family archives are kept in the National Museum of Wales so I guess that it would take some quite painstaking research to discover who his gardener was, unless you ask Norman at the windmill; Norman knows everything there is to know about Rayleigh!