I've been meaning to link to this for a few days now - the fabulously crotchetty Michelle Hanson, Guardian columnist, on the impending destruction of the Manor Park allotments in London to make way for the 2012 Olympics site:
... But bad luck, it's in the middle of the Olympic site, so it's going to be bulldozed and turned into a concourse between stadiums for 2012. A hundred years of allotment for four weeks of pathway. Imagine the scene last week - the tranquillity of the snow-clad allotments, surrounded by monster diggers and cranes waiting to gobble it up.
She also helpfully points to the Manor Park allotments website, which keeps readers up to date with the latest developments and also links to a petition calling for the site to be saved. The gallery of images of allotmenteers past and present is particularly touching: there's one shot of an elderly man on his plot in the 1970s that reminded me so much of my grandad, who had five allotments until the 1960s.
It does seem crazy that at a time when there are allotment waiting lists in towns and cities all over Britain, these plots are to be paved over. As Hanson puts it, "What is five years in the middle of the biggest construction site in Europe? A breeze compared to plotholding through the second world war."
So very, very sad. I feel like somebody has died. I grew up on an allotment, it was part of my childhood and part of my life now. I would be devastated if it was my allotment.
Posted by: Matron | February 20, 2007 at 09:24 PM