Ilkley author Mandy Sutter's illustrated memoir Ted the Shed

The blog, posted regularly on Sutter’s website, charted her adventures with her dad, their gardening triumphs, failures and mishaps. “People really responded to it,” says Sutter. “And it got quite a good following.” Then, in October 2019, her father died. “I thought at that point that I could try and turn it into a book, because in a way it had become a complete story, with a beginning, middle and end,” she says. “I made a start on it fairly soon after dad died and then lockdown happened in March 2020.” Sutter began to reblog some of the original stories “mainly to entertain people during that time.” She got such a positive response to it from readers that she continued. “I was slightly nervous about it; I wasn’t sure it would work as a book because it was so episodic, but I was pretty determined to do it, partly because it was a bit of a memorial to my dad.”

The book, which is told in a diary form and charts the journey that Sutter and her father made together over the course of nearly ten years working side by side on the allotment, is beautifully illustrated by Leeds cartoonist and printmaker Janis Goodman. “We worked on it during lockdown. Each week I would write a section and then Janis would do an illustration to accompany it,” says Sutter. “We both felt it was one of the things that helped us get through lockdown. I so looked forward to getting her drawing when it came. The illustrations are beautiful and she has captured the tone, not just the humour, it is an appreciation of something that is intrinsic to the project – a bitter-sweetness.”

While Sutter was not initially enthusiastic about the allotment, her feelings towards it gradually changed over time. “The plot was in dad’s name and there came a point when we had a conversation about whether I could take it on after he died. We were told by the council it couldn’t be passed on to me and I was devastated – it made me realize that I was more attached to the allotment than I thought.” The rules have since been revised to allow people to ‘inherit’ a plot, possibly as a result of Sutter lobbying for change, and in fact after her father died, she kept the allotment on for another three years.

“It was a comfort to keep going there because it felt like it was something we had shared,” she says. “I feel like I learnt a lot more about my dad through having the allotment and I came to understand him better. He was a big character and a bit of a loner, he wasn’t a team player. So, he would do his thing on the allotment and I would do mine.” For Ted that meant mostly making improvements to the shed he single-handedly built and kitted out. “He had to plough his own furrow and I accepted that in the end. It was just so great to have a place where we could talk, be together in nature and co-exist.”

Sutter says that while her father, like many men of his generation, was generally quite reserved and undemonstrative, he was always “incredibly proud” whenever she got something published. Ted the Shed, a loving tribute, could well have made him the proudest of all.

Ted the Shed is available at selected independent bookshops and garden centres and via mandysutter.com Mandy Sutter will be speaking at the Grove Bookshop, Ilkley at 7pm on May 2 (sold out) and at Keighley Library at 2pm on May 18.