Geoff Hamilton’s funeral service sheet

Thanks to Gail Herbert for making Geoff Hamilton’s funeral service sheet available.

Gardening presenter and journalist,Geoff Hamilton was born in 1936 in East London.  He was a twin.  His love of gardening developed early, and he worked on practical gardening magazines as a journalist before beginning his television career.  After working for Anglia Television, he joined the ‘Gardeners’ World’ team in 1979.  The series was based at his home, Barnsdale, in Rutland, from 1985.  His five acre garden was divided into a number of small plots, mimicking suburban gardens.

Geoff presented a number of gardening series, besides ‘Gardeners’ World’, including: The Cottage Garden, The Paradise Garden, The Ornamental Kitchen Garden, The Elizabethan Kitchen Garden, and Old Garden, New Gardener.

He died of a heart attack on 4 August 1996, whilst taking part in a charity bike race.

I worked as a researcher on ‘Gardeners’ World’ in 1990/1, and remember filming at Barnsdale.  Geoff had two cats, named after directors on ‘Gardeners’ World’, one was named ‘Denis’, after Denis Gartside, but I can’t remember the name of the second one.  Geoff’s downstairs loo was also a fascinating place to visit – the walls were covered with press cuttings about ‘Gardeners’ World’, and you could spend quite a while reading the walls happily!

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