It is the height of impertinence on my behalf to stand here today and liken myself in any way with the Right Reverend Dean Reynolds S. Hole who is regarded as the Father of the Rose - not just in England but in many places throughout the world.

No it isn't impertinent - it is worse. It is cocky, arrogant, audacious, irreverent, cheeky and even flippant that I should try to even equate his life and mine.

But then -- don't we all want to be like our heroes in some way?

Certainly I am not like the Dean. He was the most romantic and handsome man that you could meet. He was tall, attractive, good-looking with a big open face that spoke all the way of his genuine nature. A full crop of hair; deep eyes that probed everything and a look on the face that spoke of being totally alive to all that was going on around him. The sort of eyes that could laugh with you - and cry too.

I feel that it is almost a necessity in my life to let more and more people know about him. In case he has escaped your notice let me tell you that he was a clergyman, a writer and a tireless apostle of roses. He helped organize the first national rose show in Britain. He became the first President of the Royal National Rose Society. He travelled widely and was a great success at a banquet and reception held in his honor in new York in 1884. Yes, he was quite a man - a man who very positively loved roses. I share his love of many things in much the same degree.

I love roses - he did too. Like him, if I didn't have roses I think I would die. He remembered in one of his books that he began life with 12 rose bushes - I began mine with eight. And then like him I unknowingly followed his path - 40, 50, 100, 200, then one thousand. There I stopped but he went on to four and five thousand!

I love horses and he did too. I have always hoped that in one of the stables that I use they would produce a horse called Samson, the name of the Dean's favourite hunter. Maybe that is why when I want to go riding I always ask for a big horse… and while I may have found the spirit of his horse I have never found one with the same name.

He had many good friends but one truly great friend, famous London artist John Leech; there was a very great camaraderie between the two. The Dean was shattered when it took news of Leech's death a day to reach him. He spoke and wrote of a grief that would never ever leave him at the death of his great friend. I too had one great friend. When he died I was in California and did not hear of it for some time. I cried and cried for a year and more… I still do.

I love wine - so did the Dean. There are many times in my life when I repeat one of his comments; I am not sober - and don't mean to be for many months to come. Maybe he had dreams of visiting wine country - like that of the USA. And in Punch magazine once it was written that there was some fun in him - proved by his performance with a wet cork in a bottle.

And there was food too - well, certain foods: One of the reasons I enjoy America is that I love their crispy bacon for breakfast. He wrote: "I thought at the time in my little mind that if ever I had a sufficient income to justify me having frizzled bacon, then there would be little left in the world to wish for."

Roses, horses, friends, wine, food - and then he loved to flirt.

Yes, and I will admit it in public. I enjoy flirting more than I enjoy the crispy bacon! I have to say that I have flirted all my life - just a little . He said that he couldn't pass a good looking woman without falling in love. I am afraid that this does happen to lesser mortals too - and like him I love it.

There were other areas where we both coincide. When confronted with scientific botany he had to confess that he had a skull void and empty of scientific treasures but the property, I trust of a true gardener. Me too - although I would rather play with roses any day than play as a gardener.

He was a great traveller. In the years after his marriage he travelled widely and wrote a great deal about roses and the Church. Someone wrote about him that he was blessed with a good wife, interested in his work, who welcomed him home, loving him so that he was able to take on so much travelling, prepare so many talks and lectures, deliver them with sincerity and never shrink from the day to day slogging which all his work required. His wife was Caroline, and you will meet her later, my wife is Sally. So we had that in common too.

I think with those sort of facts going both ways you will appreciate why the Dean and I have been friends and pals in spirit for so long. Of course as I said we parted company on a few points - he was big, handsome and had a full head of hair… and more than anything else he had extraordinary vitality. The fact is that you just cannot approach his life without it jumping at you with visions of his energy, enthusiasm, gusto, sparkle - and even potency.

It did occur to me that maybe no one should expect someone to talk critically about his hero… but then who was to know that Dean Hole was - is - one of my great heroes.

His famous Book About Roses has biblical status in my life. It rests beside my bed with just a small group of books that are important to me. It is the most famous book on roses in the world… yet you would not believe that if you were to go looking for it even in the bibliography of modern rose books. My now departed friend Jack Harkness did mention the book in many of his publications and called it the nearest thing to a literary work of art in the rose world. He said that while he seldom referred to it he felt that no rosarian could read it and remain uncoloured by its influence.

That word influence is the one that registers most in the life of Dean Hole. He was born a century and a bit before me - in 1819… the third child of the family of four - three girls and the one boy. His father, who had worked in what he called the Satanic Mills of Manchester, was said to have been the man who put the spots into cotton. When the family started to arrive after his marriage to Mary Cooke his father moved to Caunton Manor, then a broken down house and nothing like the good manor home it was to become.

Of course Nottinghamshire was the home of Robin Hood and the young Hole took up archery actually joining a club known as the Royal Sherwood Archers.

We talk about children today being unmanageable… well Reynolds Hole was not too far removed from them. On one occasion in a violent and vindictive temper he kicked and spat at his father. Later he went back to apologise: "Father," he said, "the devil told me to kick you, the spitting was my own idea."

Mothers do not despair of your children. Here was a man who was headstrong - and had a problem with discipline as a child. One day in school he was locked in the cellar for his sins. But he panicked the staff quickly enough when he shouted through a keyhole: "You can do what you like about letting me out but I have turned the tap of the beer barrel!"

I'm sure they let him out quickly then - but hardly the beginnings for a man who was to become a very high churchman.

How did the remainder of his youthful days go? Well, at four he was capable of riding a pony, at eight he wrote a drama, and at ten began to write poetry (most if it written, he said, during dull sermons preached by the local aged vicar) Some of it was actually published by the age of 14.

Life of course then was - well, different. Maybe I would say it was far more beautiful to live. You had to make your own amusements… you had to do things for yourself. He fell in love with flowers early and later wrote about his collection of wild flowers. The first plant which I could call my own I bought for sixpence from the nursery near our school… I have grown and shown a multitude of specimens since then; I have won prizes in gold and Cups of silver but I have never exhibited or seen others exhibit anything half so precious as that… no colour could compare with its splendid crimson flowers. The plant cost sixpence then - a lot of money for anything - in fact the equivalent of £5 today!

But like youth everywhere, he was taken away from flowers by the dazzling attractions of the world. He went on to Oxford with his head full of horses, archery, cricket - and pretty girls. He talked then of the sweet agony of meeting face to face with those of a fair face. And he says that he was quite powerless to understand the meaning of the celibate life! In other words he was no worse and no better than the rest of rampant youth… in Irish terms he was a bit of a boyo! Horses, games and pretty women - put those to the man in your life and see if he would disagree with the Deans priorities.

But then came the day when his eyes rested on a rose.

He wrote about that moment himself: "Sauntering in the garden one summers evening with cigar and book, and looking up from the latter during one of those vacant moods in which the mind, like the jolly young waterman, is absorbed in thinking about nothing at all my eyes rested on a rose."

That was the precise moment that turned a mighty man to roses. This was the start of his true horticultural life. Years later he wrote about that moment, telling a story about a young English gentleman who has just finished his career at Oxford and was sauntering through his fathers garden thinking more of the weed between his lips than of the flowers around him. His words were: "Classical literature, and field sports, and pretty faces, and graver matters than these had caused that love of flowers innate in all the children of the grand old gardener to pale its ineffectual fire." He was blind to the glory that was all around him. Suddenly…for this was I, I was he, and I know to a few inches the very spot - suddenly saw the glow of the western sun upon a Rose. It was a Gallica Rose and the splendour of its crimson hues caused him to say from his heart, "Oh, how beautiful. I could almost have knelt - I say almost because I was in dinner dress and Pooles expensive garments were not adapted for kneeling upon gravel walks." He visited every other rose in the garden although there weren't many in those days. There was the old cabbage (centifolia) - what a name to give a lovely Rose! - you might as well call it bubble and squeak.

The others he visited included Rosa Mundi, the Fairy Rose, the Crimson damask, Charles Duval, Brunosis, Charles Lawson and Madame Laffay.

I was delighted by my sudden and complete conversion. Love at first sight.

Of course he went on to become a clergyman. He gave his first sermon on September 29 1844 and his mother wrote: "Our dear son did the duty for the first time and got through it very well indeed. His sermon was excellent and very much liked." He went on to become vicar, canon and Dean as you would expect. He gave his life to the church but gave his spirit to the rose. He never forgot his first rose - do any of us forget our first rose? For him it was d'Aguesseau, the brightest red rose in the whole group of Gallicas; a rose that is full, fragrant and one of the most desirable roses in this group. I don't have to talk about it in this company - you all know it for what it is. His words about it were that he remembered it as a man remembers the first-love smile of his hearts' queen.

Soon he was back in the garden with a pencil in place of a cigar (cigars were all in vogue then, cigarettes were despised even fast young ladies carried a cigar case) and under his arm was a book by one of the great writers on the rose - it was called Rivers on the Rose. This was his initiation in to roses . Seeing the wonderful blooms startled his imagination … and the book completed his conversion. Years later he was to go on writing his praises of Thomas Rivers.

Until that moment he had, as he describes it, wandered flowerless through a flowery world; he had been more intent on riding his horse or using his archery skills than working in his garden. He recalls that Rivers once said to him "You may lose your present enjoyment of recreations, which require physical strength and power of endurance, but you will never lose your delight in the garden."

The Dean went on to say that he had fulfilled his prophecy… it was the best work I was ever permitted to do.

So he became a rosarian. I became overpowered by the conviction that the rose was the loveliest of all flowers and I steadfastly resolved to devote myself to its culture - from that time every effort which I made to acquire and apply information inspired me with a stronger determination and with a more confident hope.

But he wasn't one to sit dreaming over the rose catalogues or over a beautiful rose in someone else s garden. He read every book he could find on the rose and if I heard of a garden in which roses were grown I went to see - they were few and far between in those days, but I had youth and horses on my side and I drove and rode any distance.

Word soon got around about his love of roses and many people wrote to him. But one letter was more momentous that any other. It came, as he wrote, one cold slate coloured morning in 1869. The writer was a mechanic from about 25 miles away and invited him to be judge at a rose show to be held in Nottinghamshire the following Easter Monday. The exhibitors were all work mates of the mechanic. Easter? He must have wondered. Easter for a rose show? Who would have roses that early in the year? Then its approximation to April Fools day brought another doubt to his mind. But he was so impressed by the genuine tone of the letter that he wrote off asking how roses could be grown in such weather,

"By return of post I was informed by much more courtesy than I had claim to, that the roses in question were grown under glass and the growers would be delighted to show me where and how if I would oblige them with my company."

So on the Easter Monday in typical English weather when spring and winter, sleet and snow were fighting round after round I went to Nottingham. He was very unsure of himself but the welcome given to him was almost overwhelming. It made summer of that dark ungenial day. The show was held at a local public house and the room was filled with roses in milk and beer bottles - an almost unbelievable sight. Among the roses he recorded seeing there were Adam, Devoniensis, Madame Willermorz and Souvenir d un Ami. They were shown, he says, in their exquisite beauty. And he did not hesitate to say that the best Marechal Neil and the best Madame Margottin he ever saw were exhibited in beer bottles at that first show. "One of the roses, a hybrid perpetual named Alphonse Karr I never met with afterwards of the same size and excellence. …I must frankly own that I bought it, budded it, potted it, petted it for many years in vain." He saw the funny side of some of the bottles too. "A small and sickly Paul Ricaut warmed my whole body with laughter, was appropriately placed in a large medicine-bottle with a label requesting that the wretched invalid might be well rubbed every night and morning. Poor Paul, a gentle touch would have sent him to pot-pourri!"

He was so overcome by the display that he wrote that he didn't t regain his equanimity until he has reached home and mailed off an order for a collection of roses in pots.

Thus began the rose life of the greatest rose writer and personality that the world has ever known. To be even here talking about him sends a shiver up my back.

He had all his heroes too - what history is written in the names of Rivers, Wood, Paul, Lane. When Dean Hole wrote about them he talked of all these as heroes of his past … and he wondered if they could talk to their grandchildren what would they think of the developments which they began.

How often I have asked myself how Dean Hole would himself think of the world of roses as it is today. Probably like he saw Thomas Rivers then - half pleased, half perplexed with all that is going on.

These were the great pioneering years of the rose. That is why I think that Dean Hole's book about roses is so interesting for anyone to read. The time was, as he saw it himself, only the skirmishing before the real battle of flora. All around him fuchsias were being offered with the advice that 50 different varieties should be planted, and with pelargoniums a brilliant future was promised. The rose was hardly an item at the flower shows of the time.

His first roses were planted at Caunton where his father had moved the family and where he was now curate and later vicar. He talks of his father watching the transformation of his farming land with a quaint gravity and kindly satire and suggested that while it might be all right to put the finest rotted manure with the brambles that were bring grown he wondered if his son would leave some for the wheat.

This was also the great days of village shows - carnations, gooseberry, chrysanthemum, dahlia, tulips - but none for roses. Then Dean Hole himself made his suggestion by writing a letter to a magazine called The Florist. There must be a national rose show for roses, he said. But no one responded - even though he says that when he put out the idea he purred because he was so confident that it would quickly be taken up. He must have been shattered when there was no response. But he did not give up that easily. There was only one thing for it … to make personal appeals. That was where success came … the letters of agreement reached him so quickly that he noted that he began to whistle one morning when he was shaving and it finished up a bloody business.

A meeting was held in a Piccadilly hotel and a date set for the first ever rose show on July 1st.1858 with each person present subscribing 5 towards a fund. Imagine today asking for a subscription of 350 sterling (the equivalent in today's money) towards a rose show fund. But they got it and when word of the show was announced the subscriptions came flowing in from all parts of London. So much so that they were able to hire the band of the Coldstream Guards and give out prizes worth 156 which in today's currency would be £10,850! No wonder it was called the gigantic rose show - and no wonder every rose show since has had to live in its shadow.

They needed to fill the hall with visitors at one shilling per head, a big sum then. But they were so pleased to see people arriving that when one gentleman stood on the Deans foot he apologised but seemed perplexed when told how much the Dean liked it! That was one more shilling no matter who stood on who's foot.

One man wrote about how the great stench of odour from dead dogs in the river Thames was stamped out by the goddess Flora out of her sweet charity who came up with 10,000 roses to deodorise the river and revive the town.

It must have been a truly wonderful scene. The Dean himself wrote a few verses about it in his poem The Rose Show.

They have travelled to our rose show

From north, south, east and west,

By rail, by road, with precious loads

Of the flower they love the best,

From dusk to dawn, through night to morn,

They've dozed mid clank and din,

And woke with cramp in both their legs

And bristles on their chins.

Of course there were a few mistakes… the band of the Coldstream Guards were more than a little too noisy indoors but other than that it was a success. A total of 2000 visitors attended the show - and the Dean himself won a couple of trophies. Indeed even today the formula used then for showing roses still exists. There were some wonderful classes however that have been dropped. For instance there was a class for roses shown in the most natural manner as grown on the tree. A pity we still don't have that. Then there was the staggering class of 48 separate varieties in a box… this was a class that lasted up to the 1960s but could basically only be entered by nurserymen who would have that number of varieties. Yes, the new ministry for the Dean as secretary of the show was a success.

And the rose shows went from success to success. By the time the third show came around there were 16,000 visitors to see the roses! But there was something missing in his life. He had success in his ministry; he was on very friendly terms with all the great writers of the day - Thackeray, Tennyson, Emily Bronte, Trollop, Elizabeth Browning and others. He was a bachelor of 40 who although he said he had a weakness for falling in love and disliked the celibate life he wasn't married. Maybe things were too good. But then Venus caught up with him. Now came the realisation that a man cannot well succeed without a good wife.

She was 20. He was 40. In 1861 when writing to his sister who was living in New Zealand he said: "I am engaged to be married! After prowling about the hen roost for many roving years I have made selection of a beautiful pullet and intend to carry her off." He said that he had been lonely and had resolved to seek a congenial helpmate - one to share his tears and joy.

And I have found, and I have wooed and have won, such a sweet, bright, gentle lady. He was, he said, "spifflicated" by the fact that she agreed to marry him. He described her as Miss Francklin, of Gonalston, in this county, a lady in the fullest meaning of the word - a lady by birth and education, a lady in mind and mien. She is rather young, 20 years (I have spoken to her seriously concerning this delinquency and note improvement), tall, a daughter of the gods, divinely fair and most divinely tall for she is 5 feet 8 inches in height, fair with roseate glow, her hair the colour of yours. Oh, yes he went on like a man in love - but there were other considerations of the time for reflection…there was the dowry that she would bring with her. Unfortunately her father had made most of the estate over to her brothers and the two daughters only got 2000 pounds each. But there was an aunt who, with a discretion and elegance of mind which command my liveliest sympathy, has since bequeathed to each of them 7000 in addition.

So the lady came to him with youth, breeding and a goodly sum of money - about the equivalent of £700,000 today. The dowry was the fashion of the times and a man was not expected to throw himself away.

But could romance spell the end of the affair with roses? The fourth annual rose show was coming up and he felt it was time to hand over the reins. He wrote to the committee that there was one subject that now occupied all his thought – a subject more precious, more lovely even than roses - he was going to be married in May.

And they were married in May with John Leech (the man he was later to grieve for) as his best man. For their honeymoon they went to Paris, Macon (no doubt to sample the wines) and Geneva. And Caroline told her friends that Reynolds had given her such a lovely watch, in a double case, and outside a wreath of roses and forget-me-nots on both sides. Back home the whole village of Caunton turned out to greet them. The parish, it was said, perspired with joy. There were triumphal arches and garlands of flowers all the way to the Manor. They had a tea party and danced until late.

But Caroline found that she had indeed married a true bachelor. She found the house full everywhere of his papers and books and rubbish … yes, she was becoming a wife indeed!

Fortunately she was obviously too engaged with clearing up the house to stop him jaunting off to rose shows. and in 1862 he was Birmingham and wrote to her as "Own Darling - How I wish you were here. The loveliest show of roses I ever saw and ours, altho competing with the best in England, carrying off the first honours. They have won the two best prizes namely the first for 48 varieties and the first for 24 varieties (not to mention the second for 18 and the third for 12) and are acknowledged by nurserymen and amateurs to be unsurpassed by either of them." He selected his prizes from the most beautiful articles for the dessert table.

He was obviously ecstatic about his success saying: "I have never had such a complete victory" - he being a newly married man he didn't allow roses to take over all he wrote… "I keep longing for you, to see and share it with me." And that was enough romancing for just then - he went on to tell her: "You will hardly believe how well the roses travelled." That was the true roseman, mixing sentiments for his loved one with his loved roses… then he finished up that they would meet at the rail station the next day and ended calling her "you tweetiest tweet."

He liked that "tweety" bit. Frequently in his letters he talked of her as the "tweet of the Tweetiest" or "delicious Ownums" and "Dearest Darling" - ah, yes the romantic all the way through. A baby came along and Caroline fitted well into the whole life in Caunton. They talked a great deal about horses and riding. His great indulgence was buying lovely horses for his wife.

His first book was called A Little Tour of Ireland [published] in 1858. The Book about Roses came in the 1860s After that he never had need to write a book about roses again - this was the superb work that didn't need a follow-up. But edition after edition came from the presses… by 1880 they were into the seventh edition… and he added and subtracted as he went along. I once saw one of his books that he had used to produce one of these editions. He had taken it completely apart and in-between the printed pages had inserted blank pages so the he could make whatever notes were now necessary. Another book in the possession of the RNRS has notes all over it as well as drawings and self portraits of himself. He wrote books about preaching and sermons, gardens and gardening, he wrote his memories in 1892, and he wrote a Little Tour of America which is fascinating.

But it is his rose book that truly fascinated me… I got my own copy as a gift from the RNRS in 1970 - the best book gift I was ever given. It has been opened and read more than any other book in my life - and that says something when I tell you that I have reviewed anything up to four books a week over many years.

Jack Harkness talked about the book abounding in anecdotes, love, morality and instruction like a breath of Victorian life. Yes, I can pick it up anywhere and find pieces that will just open a window for me on roses - or life. If we are to begin at the beginning it must be with the Dean's most famous quotation:

"He who would have beautiful roses in his garden must have beautiful roses in his heart."

Isn't that the most wonderful opening to any book about roses?

He carries the seeds of romance with him through the book - a positive indication that marriage didn't kill the love of the rose. As with smitten bachelor or steadfast mate the lady of his love is lovely ever, so to the true rose grower must the rose tree be always a thing of beauty. To others when the flower has faded, it may be worthless as a hedgerow thorn! To him, in every phase, it is precious.

What you do for the rose he says you get back in far greater measure. Probably my own recipe came to me after reading him - give food, water, air, sun and a little bit of love and you will have wonderful blooms. But deny the rose the attention it deserves and you get the rose that you deserve.

To show exactly the requirements of a good rose he tells the story of the man who had just won first prize and a competitor remarked to him. "I believe that you have the only soil in Lincolnshire that could grow such great blooms." To which the man replied: "And I brought it all here in a wheel barrow."

In one place he comments that the average amateur rose grower had at that time made as much progress as George III with his fiddle There are three classes of violinists - those who cannot play at all, those who play badly, and those who play well. Your Majesty is now commencing to enter the second of these classes.

Oh, yes there is so much to learn in this book. You may well find that the writing is of that older style that sounds a bit like a preacher - but then he was a preacher - a very good one with sense enough to know the difference between a book for gardeners and a service for a parishioner.

But what about the roses he talks about in this book … I have told you about the man, about his life and his wife. Now I should tell you about his roses.

I have tried to get as many pictures of these roses in today's situations as I can, but what I would give for a reverse crystal ball that would show me the past and how they were for the wonderful Dean. Trying to make a selection for his book was, he said, like taking a schoolboy into a fruiterers shop and telling him to choose something. He describes his feeling as a delicious perplexity, an ecstasy of amazement, an embarrassment of riches… a sweet uncertainty.

His way when it came to making his selection was to say that The Rose will answer for itself. And as he wrote that he said that he heard an intermittent tapping on his window… it was the roses saying: "Begin with us." So he began with climbers:

The best climbing rose for him was Gloire de Dijon… robust growth, hardy constitution and, when fairly established, it grows with a wonderful luxuriance. He writes two pages on this rose - still worth reading . Then switch on to someone like David Austin and read him. He speaks well of this old rose but sees it diminishing and suggests that someone find a robust old plant of it and build a new stock from it. Jack Harkness too mourned the weakening, and the deterioration of this variety saying that today it cannot be a shadow of what it once was, suggesting that it would be a good subject for someone who wanted to find out why roses change. But the Dean might not have been too upset at the degeneration of his favourite variety, because a few years later he found that out of 434 varieties that he had grown a mere decade before, 410 had been cast aside to make way for their betters! Which often brings up my own point that although a rose may have been gloried over a century ago that is no excuse for people recommending it. It might well have been one of the greats… but time takes its toll.

There is Cloth of Gold. The Dean talks about the crowds almost fighting to see a box of this rose brought by Cants of Colchester… even the most jealous could not dispute its supreme beauty. In its integrity it is, I believe, the most glorious of all roses. But a tender lady… to be brought up in sun, sheltered and cared for. His was cut down by cruel frost.

Marechal Niel… he named as among the new stars of special brightness that have glittered in our firmament. He loved it for its beauty, shape, size, colour, fragrance, longevity, abundance — our every desire and hope. But he could not pass the ordeal of a severe winter. I wonder if you, like the Dean - and like me - believe that it is better to have loved and lost that never to have loved at all. If I could win the Lottery and have the money I would have a wonderful heated glasshouse full of these wonders of past days.

Then his recommendation is Climbing Devoniensis. But tender too although with form, complexion and sweetness. Then Lamarque… earliest and refined. After that there are pages and pages of descriptions of roses that are alive and well today and living in many peoples gardens and memories.

There is General Jacqueminot. Petals soft and smooth as velvet but after a time the General lost his fire… even Generals must fall in front of younger soldiers. La Reine, queen of the HPs… in sun and warmth. Madame Boll, Paul Neyron, Blairii No. 2 (known as 'Bleary Eye'), Juno, Triomphe de Bayeaux. There is a list that I have prepared of the roses that grew in his garden the year before he died.

Oh, the roses that were there… are there… roses that you, as triumphant holders of the mantle of Dean Hole, preserve for those of today and tomorrow. The pictures and the words that I have tried to put together are poor indeed to the whole image of the rose and the man.

It was a wonderful life, lived to the full, by a man who brought happiness with him… the man, a writer, a man of God, a man of peace and love, a man who loved roses. A man with a great enthusiasm for everything in life. A man who didn't stint on praise where it was due. One great letter he wrote was to a man who had just won a major rose prize in Edinburgh:

“Grand - Hurra-Glorious-HurraGoloptious-Hurra. Quite as well I was not at Edinburgh. the Archbishop of Canterbury might have been perplexed… to hear that the Rev. Canon Hole and T.B. Hall, Esq. were seen dancing the Scottish reel in Highland costume around a box of roses… . Yours hip-hip-hipishly one cheer-moreishly, S. Reynolds Hole.”

Yes, he knew the words for the occasion. He opened his Book About Roses with a couple of verses:

There's a rose looking in at the window

In every condition of life -

In days of content and enjoyment

In hours with bitterness rife.

Where’er there’s the smile of a good wife

As bright as a beam from above

Tis the rose looking in at the window.

And filling the dwelling with love.

He was the first president of the RNRS and his memory is perpetuated with the Dean Hole medal, given to those who, like David Ruston, have done so much for the rose It is the premier award in the world of roses. He would have been delighted in that.

He died in the 43rd. year of married life. Yes, he was 83. The year was 1904. And he was buried in the parish where he was born and where he had ministered in the name of God and grew roses in the name of love.

His tombstone is simple with the merest details of his life. I would love to be able to put a stone there carved with the words he once wrote himself

“…when the eyes meet with love to gaze with reverent admiration upon leaf and blossom and bloom;… the hearts meet also”.

Thank you for listening to my version of the story of the great and wonderful Dean. May your own lives be blessed with love and peace and blossom and bloom too as his was.

“ … Whether the shape of a rose be globular, cupped, or expanded, and whether its petals be convex or concave, a perfect gracefulness of form is attainable.”