Terry and Mirelle Bane Blooming Britain

Terry and Mirelle were both born and lived in Norwich, they first met working at Earlham Park Nurseries greenhouses employed by Norwich City Council during the late 1980's.

Both sharing an interest in photography and Terry studying City and Guilds Photography, weekends were spent visiting windmills, something Norfolk and Suffolk are richly stocked.

Terry's interest in growing began in his early years, with his brothers regularly visiting dads (Bob Bane) allotment at Ipswich Road, Norwich (now built on and a Holiday Inn) to help harvest vegetables to bring home for mum (Hazel Bane), "my dad kept chickens and rabbits which I liked to see but did not want to eat, eggs were OK, each of my brothers had a pet chicken until one day we were told they all had flown away!"

"The allotment helped sustain my parents large family living on the Tuckswood Council Estate, money was short and feeding five sons had to be creative with what was available, bread with OXO or with milk and sugar was a regular and favourite breakfast, there was always plenty of cabbage and potatoes from the allotment or vegetable garden for lunch and dinner, mum's plum duff was a favourite for me hot and cold"

TUCKSWOOD TERRY A BUDDING GARDENER

A young standing Terry Bane and friend in the Vegetable Garden

Tuckswood Estate, Norwich early 1960's

Terry back row left (folded arms) with school class

South Harford Juniors - Tuckswood approx 1967

The Bane family on holiday at Hemsby early 1970's

Terry's first greenhouse - Lingwood 1974

Terry with one of the hundreds of Cacti grown in the

home made greenhouse at Lingwood 1974

As a youngster Terry collected horse chestnuts to play conkers and sweet chestnuts to roast and eat on the open fire, noticing the nuts small radicals Terry potted them up as well as acorns and watched them grow into small trees.

In 1969 the Bane family moved to Lingwood. Terry went to a new school, Acle secondary modern and discovered rural science, botany, allotment plots and greenhouses. Having a paper round money earned Terry often purchased old copies of Amateur Gardening and Popular Gardening and sent away to seed companies for catalogues, Suttons, Thompson and Morgan and Dobies were favourites.

Watching Percy Thrower, Arthur Billet and Geoffrey Smith on TV Terry was inspired and spent much of his time growing plants from seed and cuttings in the school greenhouse propagator and at home in dads home made Tomato greenhouse made of salvaged windows and doors.

Terry particularly liked growing cacti from seed and taking offsets, at one stage having a collection of around 200 plants which spares were sold at the local shopping centre hardware store.

"I had and still do have a passion for plants and knew at a very early age my career was going to be in horticulture"

Updated 11th November 2017 � Copyright Terry and Mirelle Bane 2017 - Web Site Designer Terry Bane terrycbane@gmail.com