So, we're here Jo, in Girton College, 
the first women's college of the University
and this courtyard, Eliza Baker Court, 
is right at the heart of college
and it's place where Chrystabel Procter 
would have gardened.
She was very eccentric.
Appointed head gardener here in 1933, 
she would have taken over from the man
She would have had to proved herself.
What was special about Chrystabel Proctor?
What seems to be special about her 
is that she took the role and she
made it her own.
She became a important person in the
college and I think that's
quite difficult to do, 
especially if you're not in an academic role.
How did Chrystabel transform the garden 
environment here up at Girton?
During the war, 
she really took over the garden completely.
She focused on producing food.
She had five tomato houses, two cress houses,  
she produced 19 tonnes of potatoes.
She got the students to go out in the
cabbage fields and pick 
the caterpillars off the cabbages.
She was pretty confident about 
asserting women's
right to be there in those kinds of 
formerly male-dominated spaces.
I really think this is what an 
institution like Girton would have given her.
You get the sense here, 
the sense of women's history here,
and how indomitable women,
you always say that about women 
but they really were.
Built this place 60 years before 
Cambridge actually gave them degrees.
Just that fact alone means that 
she would have imbibed some of that
spirit I think.
What was it like for you when you were 
appointed as a head gardener?
I had a background in very, very
decorative, intensely decorative gardening.
They all knew that and so my first 
Garden's Committee, they said to me
"and you know Jo, 
we don't want any flowers in this garden."
No flowers?
And definitely no pink, not to plant pink.
So all I could think of was pink and flowers 
and I just filled the garden with flowers.
And pink ones.
Were you paid the same as men?
Us head gardeners, we do this 
very transgressive thing, we always
tell each other what we're paid.
When I found out that was paid 
£4,000 less, I just mentioned it
and then instantly I was given a pay rise.
How many other women Head
Gardeners were there
at the time 
when you were appointed?
Very few women head gardeners,
and for a long time I was the only one.
Now there are four.
I think Cambridge is very slow to understand 
that we should be treated, 
we are all equal really.
I think we're lucky being women actually, 
we don't have quite that burden of tradition.
I think we are freer.
And what do you think Chrystabel's legacy is?
I came and read the archives in 2008.
At that time I was wanting to change the 
garden at Murray Edwards 
from a purely decorative garden,
to a garden for students, so I was
going to do this massive kind of like
paradigm shift.
I really needed authority to do it. 
I looked at the archives and I said,
Chrystabel Proctor said this in 1945 you know, 
it's been done before it's really possible.
I think without Chrystabel I couldn't
have done that very easily,
changed the whole focus of the garden 
from being just a 'look at me' display garden
to a garden which says come in, pick the
flowers, enjoy yourself,
it's your garden.
That's a big shift.
Do you think there's a 
feminine way of gardening?
No, I don't think that. I feel
very free to think what I like.
I like to feel that sometimes when we do 
push the boundaries around, or
be transgressive, they were actually
moving things forward,
and that we're making things better for
people. We're sort of like trying to
feel what the future might be like
and I think that's really important we 
don't stay the same.
