Michael Cooling, who joined his father Arthur in 1955 to form the partnership trading as Coolings Nurseries and commenced Garden Centre trading in the same year with the sale of fertilisers, insecticides, peat & compost died last Friday.

Since his retirement in 2002, Michael wrote several books about the history of Coolings including 'Blooming Wonderful' and 'From Smallholding to Garden Centre.'

A full obituary, along with funeral details will follow later this week.

Please use the comments button below to add your memories of Michael or e-mail them to trevor.pfeiffer@tgcmc.co.uk and we will add them to this story.