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Peter Sellars and Stephen Stills with John The Gardener
This is from 1970 at a big estate called Brookfield House in Elsted, Surrey in England. It's a home that Peter Sellars owned and sold to Ringo Starr, then Ringo Starr sold it to Stephen Stills. And through all of those owners, "John The Gardener" was there taking care of the huge gardens, ponds, and groves of birch trees -- you'd see him out there smoking his pipe and planting crocuses and stuff like that. I spent three months there living with Stephen and all the other people there (he always had a house full of people) taking photos for his first and second albums. John The Gardener would always tell us stories about how "When Mr. Sellars was here" this would happen and that would happen, so Stephen wrote a song called "In Johnny's Garden," which is on one of his albums. Peter Sellars patterned his character Chauncey The Gardener (in Being There) after John The Gardener, 'cause they were very close and he was an amazing, amazing person. I actually saw Ringo the other day, and we were wondering whether John The Gardener was still there with whoever owns the house now.
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October 2003
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