Honorary Graduates

Orations and responses

Hugh Eric Allan Johnson, MA (Cantab)

Oration given on 10 July 1998

Chancellor:  the Senate of the University has resolved that the degree of Doctor of the  University be conferred on Mr Hugh Johnson.

It is commonly believed among the more vulgar sort of Hertfordshire and Kent folk that the County of Essex is not only flat but also too dry for good gardens.  It is true that Britain’s driest spot is only a few miles south of here - a point which the University should probably emphasise more to potential students from overseas, as they contemplate spending years dodging continual British rain while pursuing their studies.  Indeed, one distinguished gardener, Beth Chatto, established her famous ‘dry garden’ (and published her book with that same title) just down the road at Elmstead Market.  She received an honorary degree here some years ago.

Today, we salute another distinguished Essex-based English authority on gardening and the planting of trees, Hugh Johnson.  His wonderful garden is at Saling Hall, to the west of here, between Braintree and Stansted.

But this guru of gardens is also an international authority on the wines of the world and their appreciation.  Gardens and wine:  what a combination of specialities!

The green of a garden has always been thought helpful to contemplation, prayer and study.  Every monastery had its greensward and a flowery meadow.

But, in reality, if gardens are to symbolise repose, they must receive constant active work.  Rudyard Kipling wrote (no doubt admiring the fine garden he had bought at Batemans in Sussex): 

            “Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made

            By singing ‘Oh how beautiful!’ and sitting in the shade.”

This problem is greater in these more egalitarian days, without numerous gardening servants.  Great care is needed if over commitment is to be avoided.  Generally, a man should not take on more gardening than his wife can manage.

Hugh Johnson does manage his Saling Hall garden directly.  Its historic core is an exquisite redbrick walled garden which is 300 years old this year.  Beyond it lie rolling lawns and many views, corners and features - such as classical and Japanese ornaments, water and fine trees.  The trees include many recent Johnson plantings and an oak tree about 400 years old.

In this fortunate country, there are many gifted creators of fine gardens - and some gifted writers on gardening.  Hugh Johnson is both.  He obeys the poet Roy Campbell who recommended:

            “Write with your spade and garden with your pen.”

The most useful writing for a gardener-writer is a practical diary.  Hugh Johnson’s has appeared for many years in the Royal Horticultural Society’s journal under the name of Tradescant - (two John Tradescants, father and son, were both royal gardeners and exotic plant hunters in Stuart times).  A volume, The Best of Tradescant’s Diary, appeared five years ago.  He helped launch and produce the magazine The Plantsman for some fifteen years while also writing the International Book of Trees, The Principles of Gardening and Hugh Johnson’s Gardening Companion.

In addition to the great achievement in doubling his own garden and turning a gravel pit into an arboretum, this regular gardening writing would have been achievement enough for most people.  But the bulk of Hugh Johnson’s publications has been about wine, making a truly impressive combined output.

His best-known opus is Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book which has been an annual for twenty-one years.  One very admiring academic browser and boozer (now sitting not far from you, Chancellor) believes that the annual ‘Johnson’ has ‘revolutionised the referencing and the clear, concise listing of a huge amount of wine information.’  There have also been, Understanding Wine, The World Atlas of Wine and the California Wine Book ... a Cellar Book and The Story of Wine (which won no fewer than ten awards for its value in bringing knowledge and appreciation of wine to ever wider circles).  There are others, notably national wine atlases:  the record is quite formidable.

Hugh Johnson also lectures and presents wines (although he declines to give them formal scorings).  He has advised British Airways on their purchases for the last eleven years.  And then there are films; and television features; promoting or judging at wine festivals .... it is all on the record.  The wine side of his work is stimulated by stays at his other home in France. 

Hugh Johnson went into magazine journalism with the Condé Nast group after King’s College, Cambridge.  He was soon editor of Wine and Food and moved on to being the wine correspondent and travel editor of The Sunday Times.  He is still the president of the Sunday Times Wine Club and has greatly assisted its success over a quarter-century.  He has spliced together his double life writing about gardening and wine since at least 1975 - twenty-three years of pure pleasure ... and real achievement.

His greatest love may well be tree-planting, not only at his homes in Essex and France, but in re-planting hardwood trees in his Welsh woodland.

He is a very keen vice-president of the Essex Gardens Trust - a new body which seeks to protect and conserve the country’s best gardens, whether historical or botanical.  He is said by old friends to be a quiet man, although with many enthusiasms - and some strong opinions.  He occasionally provokes his ‘Tradescant’ diary readers into hot dispute as a good diary column should.

Hugh Johnson has been a great populariser of both wines and the knowledgeable appreciation of plants, gardens and trees.

All who enjoy even limited opportunities to partake of either wine or gardens (preferably other peoples’ in both cases) will salute Hugh Johnson as an institution in his two chosen fields.

If  Francis Bacon was right that gardens offer the purest of human pleasures then it will surely be heightened by a glass of good wine.  Gardens and wine can enjoy no better companions than Hugh Johnson’s books and guides.  The tidy-minded candidate for this earthly paradise will place the Johnson wine books (and the next bottle) on his drinking-arm side and the Johnson gardening and trees books on the other.  Here is a plan for stereophonic (although mercifully silent) bliss.

Chancellor, I present to you Hugh Eric Allan Johnson.