Environment minister Rebecca Pow champions making nature more accessible following her own experiences with her husband Charles Clark.
Environment Minister Rebecca Pow has shared how nature has been a refuge while grieving her husband.
Charles Clark, who Ms Pow described as “eloquent, intelligent, bright and quick” died in 2019 aged 59 from bowel cancer. She said: “Nature is my absolute refuge. It’s like my haven. It just is so re-invigorating and re-generating.
“Whether it’s just in my garden or in the wider countryside walking around our village near Taunton or even wider expenses – by the sea in a wetland, down on the coast at Steart Marshes where you can see great birds.“It’s the thing that I need to get me through my life.
“When someone’s ill or somebody dies, it is a massive help with coping.”
Ms Pow, 63, planted several spring bulbs for Charles so he had “some Inspiring and cheerful plants to look at” from outside the family’s sitting room.
These included miniature daffodils called Tête-à-tête and bright tulips which bloomed from January through until May.
The Tory MP for Taunton, who was married to Charles for 29 years, said: “We did get enormous strength from this but also about the continuity of life through planting, gardens and nature.
“There’s a huge wood behind our garden so you could watch the changing of the season when the leaves change.
“It sort of becomes a microcosm when you’re ill like that. Your world scales down but nature remained a continuous part of us going on each day.”
The mother of three said Charles was diagnosed with cancer in late 2014 just before she entered Parliament.
She described how it “dominated” the next four and a half years for their family.
Charles served on the committee at Somerset County Cricket Club in 2010 and later became chairman in January 2018.
Ms Pow said: “It was bowel cancer which is quite devastating when you first have to face that. Sadly, for him, it turned into metastasis where it transfers around the body. Bit by bit, it spread to his lungs and then eventually his brain.
“We lived with it. Everyone did brilliantly, coping with each next step of the way but as we got into the final period, his mobility was affected – particularly when it went to his brain.
“Luckily, it didn’t affect his speech. He was such an eloquent, intelligent, bright and quick man. So that would have been truly devastating.
“We lived in the moment. Our most precious times were outside, in our garden, surrounded by the plants that we planted together. We created it all ourselves and just loving it and watching it and knowing that the trees we planted will be there long after we’re gone.
“I made sure I planted plants and used lots of bulbs that I very particularly thought about. I thought about what he would be looking at. I particularly planted things he could see from his bed because we moved it to the sitting room where there’s a big picture window looking up the garden. So when he wasn’t outside, he could be looking at the garden.
“It was the best I could do.”
He also raised more than £2 million for a range of charities throughout his life.
Ms Pow said: “He was such an amazing guy. He didn’t complain. It was so gutting for him to go through all this. He did it so resolutely.
“He was really sporty and played tennis a lot. He couldn’t do any of that and eventually we had to get a wheelchair.
“Lots of people are born with a disability but this wasn’t something any of us had experience of.
“Suddenly, everybody’s life changes and you think ‘how can we handle this?’ If you’re the lead person, which is what I was – masterminding everyone – you find you give the impression that you’re in complete control and it’s all fine whereas underneath, it’s all bubbling away. You’re fighting with yourself to try and work out how you’re going to cope.”
