At last.....

Well it took 4 years almost to the day of sheer bloody minded determination. I never in my wildest imagining thought it would take that long, and cause so much heart ache. But then I also underestimated the impact it had. I am talking about the Combat Stress Therapeutic Garden, the concept for which I first had in August 2008 when I approached Toby Elliott, then Chief Executive of Combat Stress. A mad woman on a mission I must have appeared at the time, as we bullied people for donations, assistance and help. But then PTSD is a bit like that really. It raises its head when you least expect it, isn't easy to deal with, is little understood in reality and means different things to different people. What the garden did was help raise awareness of the problem. We handed out about 18,000 leaflets at the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show in 2010, and bearing in mind we only probably gave away 1 leaflet to every three people who walked through we did amazingly well.

And now the garden is where it is supposed to be; in the courtyard at Combat Stress' headquarters in Leatherhead. And it has transformed a barren, bare, bleak space into something fit for healing and peace. Every person involved in this, especially the unsung heroes, anonymous donors, hard working behind the scenes staff take a bow. You deserve it.

Update!

To say that the last few months have been hectic is an understatement. The Show (have to use capital letters here) was exhilarating, heartbreaking, exhausting, hot, fun and fulfilling. The press coverage we received was extraordinary and the garden was, if I am correct, one of the most requested destinations at Hampton Court. We had over 18,000 people through the garden. And it stood up to it. The resin-bound pathways (courtesy of Cirencester Civil Engineering) were an unmitigated success; we walked on them in high heels, flat shoes, clogs, sandals and bare feet and at the end of each day they looked fine.

We carried out a declared war against pigeons who did nothing but gorge themselves on the amelenchier berries (up to 6 on one tree) but at least we were not attacked by paraqueets! The weather was so hot we watered continuously, but by the end of the week the plants were looking even better than when they went in - in particular the echinacea which looked stunning.

However, without doubt the most fantastic part of the whole show was the feedback we received. It was outstanding. We had serving soldiers, ex-service personnel, wives, sisters, fathers, brothers, husbands and wives of those who had been out or still were in Afghanistan, in Iraq; those who had seen and felt the horrors of the Falklands and Northern Ireland, to name but a few places. Some having walked through the garden were in tears, others just silent, and some simply smiled and said 'thank you for doing this'. But what really overwhelmed me were that so many of the public had absolutely no idea of what PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) is or does. And that includes those whom I would politely term 'the older generation', although describing PTSD as 'shell shock' garnered some understanding. Perhaps I am just naive having lived with the understanding of what PTSD does to so many ordinary people who suffer from it as a result of either an accident or work. PTSD is horrific and it is not just the person who suffers, but the whole family. I think though, and this may be contentious that in some instances PTSD is used inappropriately and can be used to cover a raft of different types of shock. I also feel that using the same words to describe what happens to service personnel and civilians does not do the sufferers (in either instance) justice. Service personnel are taught to cope with extreme situations in a way that civilians are not. They are highly trained, highly motivated, and work as a team; they expect to see and be in distressing situations as part of their work. They have different priorities and different ways of dealing with events that would leave most of us civilians completely immobile. PTSD suffered as a result of war time operations, should I think be given another name.