Life through the five bar gate

By Joan Renton - 13/11/2007

My friend Claire says when I come up the path "Hello Joan, I'll put the kettle on." But we are not in her home sitting in the kitchen, but on the allotment. She has new shed which contains the makings of contentment - a stove and a kettle. We have tea and biscuits, plus patio chairs in which we can relax for a while. This lovely lady is really a newcomer with her husband Bob, who has taken over the plot this year across the path to mine.

I was asked to take over two plots about twenty years ago - nobody wanted an allottment then. I inherited a ghastly, windowless shed with a cement/asbestos roof, and a stony, weed-infested piece of ground full of broken glass. I was still working full time at the general registry office, but thought of the future. My husband was in the early days of his heart problems, but would sit and weed or chat to the other elderly men on the site. No women!

Claire and Bob have taken over the excellent plot which Steve had to relinquish because he was retiring to his roots in the Midlands. Bob cannot do much because he has a particularly distressing cancer , but Claire, this tiny lady, has dug, planted and watered and seen her crops grow this summer. I admire her. We sit and chat of our families and exchange produce. She give me lettuces and radishes which I cannot seem to grow, and I give her the huge blackberries - which never cease.

Would you believe it, we have lived a few doors from one another in the same small road just around the corner for ten years? I live at No. 27 and they live and No. 25 - and we never knew. This grieves me because this is still a village and I was great friends with Barbara and Geoff who previously lived there. Our children were playmates until they moved to Jersey, later Alderney, and I still correspond with them.

Today I was approached by a fellow WI member as I was weeding the raspberries. She and her husband have a plot just beyond mine. He was a colleague of my husband at Plessey long ago and she is a friend in the WI. She told me that he had recently been operated on for lung cancer and was now recovering. "Should I give up the plot?" she asked. "Never!" I replied. "Go and tidy up the plot, it will make you feel better, and when he has recovered he will bless you for it, because it will give him something to do and someone to talk to."

The whole business of working the land is therapeutic to my generation. We love to see carrots and parsnips spring out of the earth in which we have sown the seed. My grandfather, Bill Squires, was my advisor. This wonderful, short, stocky man, who walked miles of Essex to sit at a kinsman's hearth. I loved him and so did others. He taught me about picking blackcurrants: 'You prune as you go, girl. Cut at the lowest fruit, for then you pick and leave the rest of the branch for next year.'

The waiting list for allotments is now substantial - everyone wants a plot. In my own area the largest houses in a acre or more of ground are now being redeveloped into apartments with exclusive car slots - but without gardens. So, if you really want an allotment, keep plugging away at at your local authority because they have a statutory obligation to provide sufficient allotment land for those requiring it.

The prime example of this is Steve - mentioned already - who came back to the area because he saw that the Midland town of his roots was now alien to him. He and his wife returned here and now live in one of these new apartments without a garden. He is lonely and comes over to the allotment to chat to his old pals. There are now many people on our waiting list, so, noting his isolation, I offered him part of my ten rods to keep him happy. He can grow what he likes and share my plot.

So, far all is OK. His wife, resplendent with her fresh hairdo and make-up, came up the path to vet this new femme fatale in his life. She was happy as she left - as I was dressed in my old raggedy jeans and shirt - hair in its usual disarray. Claire and I had to laugh over our tea and biscuits, for who could possibly desire me at 78 years old?

It has been a good year on the allotment in so many ways. The rain has resurrected so many tired roots and the fruit has been unbelievable. Boxes have been picked for friends, or raffles, or just to pack away in my tiny garage freezer. So many of our generation were brought up on the land.

Keep it going for the next generation!