Michael Wale meets ‘political guru’ Sir John Curtice, who is now finding more time for his allotment following this summer’s General Election…

Sir John Curtice had a busier than normal summer as Britain’s top political guru, guiding the nation on radio and television through a surprise General Election. But it’s taken a toll on his allotment.That is an unusual reflection of a man who is Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University. Once there are elections, either national or local, demands on his time can reach almost breaking point. But we, the public, demand his non-political guidance and sheer common sense in the quagmire that is modern politics. In normal times, Sir John, and his wife Lisa, a social scientist whom he married in 1978, have rented an allotment for the past 15 to 20 years (he cannot put an accurate figure on it). As allotment holders, they are members of the Kelvinside Allotment Association in the West side of Glasgow, with a membership of 150 over two sites.

He moved to Glasgow thirty years ago. But he traces his interest in growing his own food back to St Austell in Cornwall, where he was brought up. He says, “My parents had a house with a large garden. My father grew potatoes and had fruit bushes.”

Sir John Curtice

Sir John is 72 years old now, which as a senior citizen, reduces his approximate £100 a year allotment rent by half. Although now settled happily in Glasgow, his university career began in Oxford at the same time as Tony Blair. He was first there as a student at Oxford, where later he became a lecturer, and then he moved onto the University of Liverpool, before arriving at Strathclyde, and living in Glasgow, where he put his name down for an allotment.

WAITING FOR AN ALLOTMENT
He recalls: “It took four to five years to get one. The demographic was different in those days. The waiting lists in Glasgow weren’t as long as they are now. This is because there is now an environmentally conscious generation, which has helped increase the list.”

One thing that impressed me in the lengthy conversation we had was his true depth of knowledge as an allotmenteer. Perhaps it is his long history as an academic who at the same time has had to communicate his academic knowledge with the public in terms they can understand.

Like most radio listeners in Britain, I seem to have listened to a lifetime of Sir John’s adept guidance through the world of politics, where everyone has a political opinion apart from him, especially when they are at the height of political campaigning leading to an election.

A FRUITFUL PLOT
His recalls how his plot was, all those years ago, when they took it over. It was left by the previous members with various flowers and fruit but not much else. He remembers, “There was a redcurrant bush and a few blackcurrant bushes. A gooseberry bush and a rhubarb patch, which we kept going. It had a flower border, which we kept. My wife likes peonies. There’s a section devoted to peonies now, and there is a section devoted to herbs.

Main allotment image: stock image

This article extract was taken from the November 2024 edition of The Country Smallholder. To read the article in full, you can buy the issue here.

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