A GARDENING PR guru says she is lucky to be alive after her trailer carrying materials for the Chelsea Flower Show crashed on the M3.
Yet despite the scare, 51-year-old Claire Hart shovelled pots, garlics and rhubarbs back into her trailer and arrived in Chelsea just in time to help win gold for a Coggeshall-based seed company.
Kings Seeds, who are celebrating their 125th anniversary, won the 'environmental' category on Monday in their debut year.
Claire said her accident, after a tyre on the four-wheel caravan burst, could have cost them the gold.
"I could have been killed and written other people's cars off in the process," she said.
"It would have been harder for us to win if I had been in hospital but well, the show must go on."
Mrs Hart, who started marketing for the Monks Farm company last year, was journeying from her Ilminster home in Somerset when the pig trailer's wheel burst on the M3 near Basingstoke last Wednesday.
Because she was thankfully trained in how to skid, she swivelled herself 360 degrees into a lay-by. The trailer, which was raised off the ground, was destroyed.
Mrs Hart added: "The contents of the trailer were spewed all over the road and there were crates everywhere.
"I thought our garden designer Kathy Crouch is going to kill me, then I thought, "oh no", my friend Belinda, who owns the caravan, is going to kill me, and then I looked at the car and thought my husband is going to kill me!" said Mrs Hart, who was left unhurt and was surprisingly calm.
After fellow drivers rushed to help her, she shovelled terracotta pots on board to get to the show.
Kings Seeds' 15ft by 10ft wide garden was decorated with salad crops and an anniversary plaque made from seeds.
The Coggeshall team made it in four days within a budget of £15,000 – which also covered their hotel stay. Judges praised their victory as show debutantes.
Kings Seeds managing director Les Day, 60, said: "It's absolutely marvellous – we were all jumping up and down, we were so happy. It's brilliant to have won in our first year at Chelsea and we certainly weren't expecting it.
"We went there because it was our anniversary and we actually got to speak to the judges who said they were thrilled with our nostalgic display. They said it reminded them of how their granddads grew in the old days."
