30 Daily Express Monday, April 6, 2020
TEAM: With his
wife CarolineBy Jane Warren
MARRIED to businessman Carl Dean for 54
years, Dolly Parton, pictured, suggests
self-isolation is testing their relationship like
never before.
Explaining the couple
are long accustomed to
lengthy periods apart
when Dolly is on tour, the
country music queen
jokily comments: “The
reason it worked for me is
because I’ve stayed gone.
“I can’t get away now,
I’m stuck. I might find out who he is. We
may not make it until the next anniversary.”
POSH singer-songwriter James Blunt, 46,
best known for his 2005 number one hit
You’re Beautiful, enjoys hostilities with
online trolls.
One member of the public unkindly
tweets: “As if self-isolation couldn’t get
any worse... James Blunt has just come on
the radio.”
Former army officer Blunt fires back:
“Worse must be realising you’re too thick
to change the station.”
JUST months after it was confirmed he and
wife number four Elizabeth Martin were
divorcing, Star Trek veteran William Shatner,
89, is keen to stress he’s still in demand.
The Captain Kirk actor announces to
fans: “You’d be surprised how many emails
I receive from women – and a couple of
guys – proposing marriage.”
REFLECTING, as a guest on Radio 3’s
Private Passions, on being memorably
booted off the airwaves for swearing on
live TV in 1987, Jools Holland explains: “It
was an inadvertent slip of the tongue.
“Mary Whitehouse wrote a letter,
outraged. I wrote back to her: ‘I completely
agree with you, things are falling apart. I’m
so sorry!’”
JOINING tributes to Eddie Large, pictured,
following news of his death aged 78, BBC
presenter Matthew Sweet fondly recalls
hosting an onstage reunion with the former’s
comedy partner Syd Little last year.
Of that touching night at the Bristol Old
Vic, Sweet says: “They’d
not performed together
for years. It was hilarious,
of course. It was also
incredibly moving. Like
watching an old couple
with a long and sometimes
troubled marriage renew
their vows in public.”
The duo recounted appearing in working
men’s clubs in their early days, when they
were “pelted with bread rolls... and took
them home for tea”.
CONTENDING with being locked up
behind closed doors with two of her
grown-up sons, Anneka Rice, 61, resorts
to inventing a new TV-style quiz.
“One for the kids,” she announces,
pointedly adding: “Clue one: What do you
sleep in? Make it. Clue two: Where does
Mum put dirty dishes? Empty it. Clue
three: What do you lean against while
watching TV. Plump them.”
JANE Fonda’s decision to revive her
popular 1980s workouts during the crisis
delights fans.
The Oscar-winning actress, 82, has long
been frank about her own physical
condition, acknowledging: “I have a fake
hip, knee, thumb... more metal in me than a
bionic woman.”
HICKEY
W
HEN FORMER Army officer Roger
Morgan-Grenville wakes in the
morning, the first thing he thinks
about is his busy social life. But for
him there is no social distancing
required. His friends are the bees
who live in hives in a paddock at the bottom of
his garden. And over the past couple of years,
these highly social creatures have changed
every aspect of his life for the better.
As operations officer for the Royal Green
Jackets, Roger was a full-on action man.
He kept peace in Northern Ireland, served
in the Falklands and played a key role in
setting up the hugely successful charity Help
For Heroes. On leaving the Army, he worked
in the City, another demanding, stressful job.
As a diversion from his frantic life, Roger
started beekeeping. And gradually, bit by bit,
it took over his life, slowly shaping his outlook
on the world without him even realising at first
that it was happening.
“I loved every minute of Army life,” he
admits. “I’ve had people throwing fridges at
me from the top of buildings in Northern
Ireland. I ran South Georgia after the
Falklands War. I’ve dealt with Vietnamese
refugees fleeing to Hong Kong.
“But I realised after I retired from the Army
in 1986, that I needed to be permanently –
almost comically – busy.
“The Green Jackets, where I was operations
officer for the battalion, the colonel’s right
hand man if you like, encouraged people who
think like me. But as you grow up it’s
important to unmask some of the attitude
mistakes that one makes growing up.
“I was busy to the point where it was almost
as if I was hiding something.”
Among his achievements was his role in
setting up the veterans’ charity Help For
Heroes in 2007. After that, he went into the
City. “That was a life of suits, trade shows
and containers coming in from far-off places,”
he explains.B
UT NOW what began as a
mid-life hobby has gone on
to transform every aspect of
existence for Roger, 60, and his wife
Caroline. Where once their garden
near the pretty market town of
Petworth, West Sussex, was an
immaculate world of neat borders
and carefully clipped roses, it is now
a bee-friendly riot of wildflowers and
species specially chosen for their
pollinating potential.
“We’ve planted the garden for the
bees, having looked up the flowers
they might like,” he says. “And we do
‘no mow May’. This means we don’t
mow the grass in May to cover
‘the June gap’, between the
blossoms of early spring
and the flowers of sum-
mer. We are trying to
allow food for the
insects for as many
of the 12 months of
the year as we can.”
The garden is now
an appealing tangle.
“One of the most
damaging things for
nature is our obsession
with ‘tidy’,” he adds.
“We have got into this men-
tality, but a weed is simply a flower out of
place. So now we are relatively relaxed about
all but the most invasive weeds.”
And this bee-centric lifestyle extends to
Roger himself. Where once he was a smartly
dressed officer and city slicker, the father of
two now favours jeans with holes in the knees.
And the bees not only provide him with
honey and companionship, they are also giving
pain relief directly to his arthritis. In a curioussymbiosis, Roger is actively inviting the bees
to sting him on a daily basis.
“I get stung deliberately,” he explains. “I
have arthritis and there is a thing in a bee sting
that is anti-arthritic. It may be completely
medically unproven, but they definitely feel
better and the pain is greatly reduced.
“Getting stung is a fact of life if you keep
bees, but wearing jeans with holes in the knees
has helped a lot.”
And this is not a short-term solution. “I’ve
been doing this for four or five years,” he saysproudly. “This is a magical thing.”
Whether it is science or magic or a
bit of both, it is clear that his new
life has brought Roger other long-
term benefits.
Becoming a beekeeper – even a
self-confessed unsuccessful one –
changed everything, even though he
is yet to make a penny from his new
obsession with the stuff.
Roger estimates that the first
pots of honey cost £150 each
to produce, due to the equip-
ment required. Even now they would
still work out at about £9 a pot.
“We haven’t sold a single one,” he
admits. “But we eat a lot and they
are lovely to give as a gift.”
But Roger feels the bees in his
garden have been feeding his soul
as well as his body.
“It’s been a gradual bendingHow keepin
bees helped
Army action
man find
peace
Roger’s hives
haven’t made him
a penny, but they
have soothed his
soul, fixed his
arthritis and
changed his
world view
t
pr
W
bi
lif
tese
c
is
op
t
ment requa h s a c w
‘I
get stung
deliberately. I
have arthritis andthere’s something
in the bee sting
that reduces
pain’GREEN JACKET:
Roger in his
Army days