why does no-one like Joe Swift?

[mickeynminnie]

can anyone tell me why everyone (well anyone I read when lurking on gardening forums) seems to hate Joe Swift so much?

am new to all this so not really up on who's a "proper" gardener and who's not... mind you half the opinions I read also don't like Monty because he's also, somehow, not a proper gardener

Oh. I don't like Chris Beardshaw. He's OK with the sound off. All that dramatic poetry guff makes me retch.

that's handy I'd hate to fight over them

And - random fact alert - he's not just the son of Clive Swift, but also Margaret Drabble. That is a bit unexpected.

Oh yeeees. Trust me to forget the cultured bit.

Margaret Drabble is married to Clive Swift (who I can only imagine as married to Hyacinth Bucket). Well that definitely explains Joe Swift's rise to the pinnacle of gardening telly!

sorry forgot the ?!? at the end of my first sentence.

I will have to drop this fact in if I ever stop lurking on the gardening sites and they carp on about poor Joe.

Another reason some people dislike Joe is that - given indeed that his mother is Margaret Drabble - they imagine that his Cockney geezer persona must be fake.

I really mourned when Geoff Hamilton died. He was like my favourite uncle, coming into my sitting room every week to tell me how to sort out my garden.

I quite liked young Toby. What's the story on his being sacked, then?

Joe Swift is Margaret Drabble's son?

It's the cheeky chappy Cockney thing (whether real or put on) that doesn't appeal to me. All that talkative rushing around doesn't fit with what I like about gardening (silent thoughtful pottering).

N

Oops, accidental post. What about to finish with -

No one will ever match up to Geoff for me!

Read all about it

Thanks for posting that link, comeinto, I really enjoyed reading it. What a wonderful upbringing and parenting he had, and what a well rounded and kind individual he has turned out.

Heart warming.

My pleasure. You can call me Maud. ::wink::

There's another one I read many years ago in which Margaret Drabble (of whom I've long been a fan) says something about her young son Joe not being academic but very interested in gardening, but I can't find that one online.

No one has mentioned the fact that Joe Swift's designs are REELLLLY awful...

Well, I think someone has mentioned the randomly-triangular raised beds on the allotment.

She wrote about him in her last book - can't remember the name but it's non fiction, about the history of jigsaws and her aunt, and various other unrelated matters - that's how I found out. It was probably the most interesting bit of the book though.