"My grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather and so on, going back loads of generations, were professional gardeners. They worked in a big country house in Lincolnshire, grew veg and fruit for the squire and flowers for the lady, knew all the tricks of the trade.
"You could say fertiliser runs in my veins. Well, strictly speaking it probably does. Got a bit desperate a while ago and tried shooting up Baby Bio. Not much of a rush, but I definitely felt taller the next day.
"My dad wasn't that interested in gardening, though. Being a professional juggler, he didn't stay in one place long enough to have a garden. The job – and the paternity suits and the bigamy thing – kept him on the move. Still, he could do a lovely reverse cascade with tangerines."