The Flower Shop

by Sally Page A year in the life of an English country flower shop

Introduction

To get to Ted Martin’s flower shop you first have to find your way to Tisbury. There are four roads to choose from but all are small and winding and in a snowy winter Tisbury can be more or less cut off for days, much to the delight of the school children. Take a road on an early spring morning and you will meander between gently rolling fields and woods perhaps catching sight of a lake or a mass of bluebells through the trees as you pass. Once you reach Tisbury you may well find yourself wondering ‘is this a village or is this a town?’ But before you have had time to finish the thought you will have come down the small high street to the square and be pulling up in front of the shop.

The shop has been observing life pass by in the Square in Tisbury for 150 years. At one time as a green-grocers, once as a gentleman’s outfitters and at another time as a drapers. Now this old building looks out over the Square watching the seasons come and go, as flowers and plants are delivered into the shop from the markets. All the while the weather plays out its full variations against our window. Sitting amongst the flowers with a hot cup of tea is a good place to be when the wind is lashing the rain around the square outside.

As the year passes the flower shop becomes quietly and discreetly intertwined in people’s lives. We catch a glimpse of friendship, romance, birth and death. Customers may sometimes only make a small purchase but it is clear that flowers can, and do, make a difference to them.

There is a Chinese proverb that says ‘If you have two pennies spend one on a loaf and one on a flower. The bread will give you life and the flower a reason for living’ As I walk up the street to buy some bread from the deli I can’t help thinking that the Chinese are very wise.

We very much hope you enjoy your year in the flower shop as much as we did.

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The Flower Shop is a photographic journal of a year in the life of Ted Martin Flowers, which is based in the Wiltshire village of Tisbury. It was written and photographed by Sally Page who works part-time as a florist in the shop.

Sally first thought of creating the book as she watched the flowers and seasons change in the shop and realised that within a community, flowers are used to express the full range of human emotions. It was something that she felt had never been shown in a book before. She also saw that customers appreciated simple, easy to follow advice and she wanted to let others in on these `flower shop secrets'.

The Flower Shop is a hard-back book of 240 pages with 475 colour photographs and it retails at £25.00 To find out more go to www.englishflowershop.com