MORE than 50 members and friends of the Lynchmere Society packed into the Hardman Hoyle Memorial Hall to hear more about the late Laura Ponsonby, who lived in Shulbrede Priory and died in January 2016.

She was well known for her talks, botanical knowledge and work over many years maintaining the flower table at the Haslemere Educational Museum. For years she had been education officer at Kew Gardens and she started the training programme for volunteers to show individuals and groups of all ages around.

Jack Andrews was one of the first people to complete the course. He still lives near Kew and he remembers a lively illustrated talk.

The training Laura gave was always fun but by no means all the candidates accepted for the course passed the final exam.

The art of pitching the tour to the interests of your audience, knowing what to see at each season of the year, keeping a group together, not overloading hearers with information and, most importantly, not making up things when you do not know the answers to questions were all part of it.

Laura also travelled to exotic places each year. She became a world authority on Marianne North, the Victorian artist whose flower paintings from travels around the world fill the gallery she had specially built at Kew.

Laura wrote a beautifully illustrated book about her life.

After retirement Laura kept in close touch with Kew and the successive intakes of volunteers. They started with 19 and now number more than 120. Jack has retired but is still closely involved.

He was always keen to make a film about Marianne North and guided an American couple around the gallery. They fell for Miss North in a big way and put up the funding for a film to be made.

Both Jack and Laura were deeply involved with the film, which is now dedicated to her memory. Starring Emelia Fox, it was recently screened on BBC 4 as Kew’s Forgotten Queen” and is available as a DVD in the Kew Gardens shop under the original title The Remarkable Miss North.