Many people may remember him when he was working as manager in the pet shop in Adam and Eve Street for two years before it closed.

And parents of children at St Joseph's School may remember him there as a school cook for a while.

Also he has worked part time helping Ian Joules at his shop and also as a volunteer driver of the PATH community bus.

Maurice, who has been in the catering trade all his life, says he was in a high pressure job and was commuting from near Bristol to London daily, so to make the journey easier he and his wife Catherine moved to Harborough just over 20 years ago and bought a house not far from the station, in Great Bowden Road.

He accepted a redundancy package nine years ago and actually retired a year ago.

Stephanie, his daughter, wrote in nominating him for a prize in the best back garden category because, she said: "He is dedicated, passionate, inventive and overall enjoys every minute of his time in his garden."

She describes it as a busy living space shared by every single person in his family and his grandchildren can't get enough of it. She added: "It's really nice."

Maurice, 64 at the end of this month, said the garden is divided into sections with the top part mainly being for decoration with an arboretum and vegetable patch and the middle section having silver birch trees which he grew from saplings taken from railway sidelines 20 years ago. He said they are 50ft high now.

The bottom part of the 300ft garden is a perennial garden with dramatic big plants.

Maurice described his garden as a mass of colour filled with forget-me-nots, roses and many varieties of flowers and shrubs.

Stephanie, who lives down the road, also has an allotment patch in his garden.

The couples' five young grandchildren love to spend a lot of time in the garden.

There is a pond containing a lily pad with lovely pink flowers and frogs, but not many fish these days. Maurice said: "There used to be over 70 fish in the pond but herons have depleted them; one even left one on the path recently."

The couple like to sit in their lean-to at night, lit by coloured lights, surrounded by the fragrance from the hanging baskets, roses, montbretia and his favourite, delphiniums, which are just flowering, dahlias and perennials.

Maurice said: "We get muntjac deer in our garden as well as foxes who are very playful and keep stealing Lola, the family cat's, feeding bowls."

He described looking after his garden as a full-time job and with Catherine at work full-time as a tutor of occupational therapy at Northampton University, he stays at home and does the housework.

He likes to call himself a Domestic Standards Implementer rather than a house-husband.

Last year he won a prize at Great Bowden Arts Fair, voted best entry for 2007. He has also had a couple of prints exhibited in the City Gallery and does portraits and situation photos, one of which was a photo of girls sitting on a wall opposite a chip shop at Wells-Next-The-Sea.