ILKLEY author Mandy Sutter has published a memoir called Ted the Shed, a bittersweet look at her Dad’s ten years of tenure of plot 2 at the Leeds Road allotments in Ilkley.
Her father’s name rose to the top of Ilkley Parish Council’s waiting list in 2010, when he was 87.
Coming soon after his wife’s death, Ted decided to take on the project, and roped in his reluctant middle-aged daughter and son-in-law to help. None of the three had any experience of allotmenteering. The disappointments and successes lasted all the way until Ted’s death aged 96.
Mandy decided to write about the adventure in the form of a blog as she went along, "mainly as a self-help strategy," she says. "Dad was a loner and I knew he would be difficult to work with. He was also an incredibly resourceful man and erected a shed on the plot single handedly, aged 87. He refused our well-meaning but no doubt irritating offers of help and all we could do was stand around helplessly looking on."
The blog became very popular. Ted died in 2019 and although Mandy was able to hold his funeral in Ilkley in November of that year, a family memorial involving a plaque in Cheltenham, where Ted was born, had to be postponed because of Covid. It ended up not happening at all. Mandy decided that a book would be an alternative memorial and began work on it with Leeds cartoonist and printmaker Janis Goodman.
Mandy said: "During lockdown, I sent an episode to Janis every week and she illustrated it. She captured perfectly the comic yet poignant tone of the writing. It was a joy to receive her drawings and the project got us both through those difficult months. It also helped me deal with my grief about Dad’s death."
Mandy is launching the book at The Grove Bookshop in Ilkley at 7pm on Thursday, May 2 2024. The event sold out very quickly. But there are still places left for her launch at Keighley Library at 2pm on Saturday, May 18. It is a free event but please book a place at: Library.Events@bradford.gov.uk.
The main garden centre in Ilkley, Moss and Moor, have expressed interest in stocking the book, which is published by Ings Poetry in Bradford.
Mandy is the author of two novels, three poetry chapbooks and several co-authored non-fiction books.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here