My Journey Into A New Life

Alys Fowler’s research for her new book became a voyage of self-discovery about her own sexuality. 

- Sue Thomas

In 2015, the TV and newspaper gardening expert Alys Fowler was gathering information for the latest book about gardening and wildlife. It was intended to be about the nature that often goes unseen in our cities, full of detail she was gathering while paddling the canals of Birmingham in a small inflatable kayak. It became something altogether more personal when she realised she had no choice but to listen to the quiet, insistent voice in her head that was acknowledging a truth about her own nature.

Because, although Alys had been married for several years to an artist she refers to in the book as H, at the age of 37 she realised she had fallen in love with another woman, a landscape gardener she’d worked with called Charlotte, who was also a friend of a friend. Even more significantly, she realised whether her love was reciprocated or not, there was no going back. She was, she knew with certainty, a lesbian.

That knowledge, the leaving behind of one life and the journey into a new one, while liberating on one level, was also deeply emotional. She lost weight and became despondent. There was wave upon wave of grief, many, many tears, and general ‘falling apart’.