When the Second World War started he served briefly in France, but was discharged on medical grounds.

The large house had been commandeered by the Admiralty and Dodson's task was to grow enough food for several hundred people every day.

After the war he moved to Nuneham Park, near Oxford, where he met his future wife, Jane.

He did not claim to be a Victorian gardener himself, but he had learned his trade from men who had been, and he understood the techniques they had developed.

His ashes were interred alongside his mother's remains at St Matthew's Church, Blackmoor, on 19 June 2017.