The Secret Garden

Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden—in all the places.


Written by Frances Hodgson Burnett in 1911,  it tells the story of spoilt orphan Mary Lennox and her sickly cousin Colin. After the death of her parents, Mary is brought back from India to live in her uncle's house in England, but she is desperately unhappy until one day she discovers the key to a secret garden.The book has been made into numerous films and stage shows, including a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2000, directed by Adrian Noble. Six children aged between 12 and 14, rotated between the two main roles.  I was their lucky tutor and sometime chaperone! They were all very talented, pretty diva-ish and hormones were raging. Education was actually as far from their minds as possible! I can't find any photos or recordings and this review is rather lukewarm. An interesting experience - I earned every (rather meagre) penny!