A Proper Sort of Gardener

Holland 1st recorded this song on her 1992 album "Down to the Bone". Here is she wrote about this song on her liner notes:

"I was exclusively a singer of other people's songs who didn't believe she could write, until 1987 when Jon Moore persuaded me to do so through a combination of nagging and encouragement. Initially, he also wrote tunes for my words; included are "Sandy Hill, Never Too Late", and "A Proper Sort of Garden". The latter is, like all the best once-upon-a-time stories, completely true; the Bass beer factory still stands on the site of Mr Harding's garden in Alton, Hants. Mr Harding was recently laid to rest in the same graveyard as my parents."

June Tabor also recorded the song on her 1997 "Aleyn" album. 

Once upon a time I found a garden
Picked the brightest things that I could see
I didn't know that he was watching me
Straight away my mother ran to tell him
Wondering what he would say or do
Mr Harding smiled and said "She's just a little child
I knew that she'd be picking them for you"

By the fire my dad would tell me stories
One of them concerned a garden too
Where the lion and the lamb lay down together
And every lovely fruit and flower grew
The Gardener sent his children in to play there
Rejoicing in the brightness of the day
But when they went exploring and took a fruit to taste
He cursed them both and sent them on their way

Even then I realised in my childish mind
That he wasn't a proper gardener of the Mr Harding kind

Mr Harding's garden was all taken
By lesser men with concrete in their minds
Factory chimneys grew instead of daisies
No butterflies from that assembly line
My mother faded faster than a flower
Dad sat in the darkness and cried
Mr Harding moves a little slower than before
But still he tends the grave where they both lie

Wherever it is they've gone to I hope that they will find
A proper sort of garden of the Mr Harding kind

The foolish woman sometimes feels despairing and thinks it seems so very hard to find
The child tries to plant a little everywhere she goes that special love of the Mr Harding kind

Some day when I'm older maybe I will find
That I've grown into a gardener of the Mr Harding kind

You can read more about the song at Mainly Norfolk https://mainlynorfolk.info/june.tabor/songs/apropersortofgardener.html