Snow

I’d almost forgotten about snow; proper snow with sledging, snowballing, and inconvenience for people who want to go to work. The children rejoice. So far as I know, so does Oscar dog, even when, in the Highlands, there was little to be seen but his tail and a nose, surfacing now and then to check position. 

Birmingham, with the rest of the country south of the borders, gets taken by surprise. Snow comes so infrequently, the airwaves disperse hyperbole about 'weather', it can't be nostalgia that I recall such conditions as normal, to be taken in our stride. This weekend on to Monday, buses didn't run. Schools closed. No trains or trams for 48 hours, No gritting. When salting came, as befits services under 'austerity', only arterial roads got the treatment. 
Oliver was staying with us on Sunday. We ventured out on foot to the allotments. 

At the iron gates I brushed frosted snow off the lock's push buttons.

"We're the only ones to visit" 

"How do you know, grandpa?" 

"What do you notice about the snow, Oliver?"

To my surprise he couldn't work it out. 

We trudged through boot-depth snow to the plot. 

Pristine. From the parks came shouts and laughter. In the distance I could see the smudgy shapes of many Canada geese standing by the pond among the naked trees, oblivious to the stick people cantering about, snowballing, making snowmen, sledging.

"Help me, Oliver"

He'd already made sure to bring a carrot. The snow packed up sticky to make good lumps to pile up for our snowman's body. When he was nearly as high as me I used  a trowel to shape neck and shoulders. Oliver collected chunks with his gloved hands to fill in gaps in the body. 

"Charcoal for eyes! Veg nets for a scarf. Give us the carrot" 

I carved holes for nose and eyes.

"His mouth!"

I went in the greenhouse and found a dried runner bean pod, curved. Perfect. 

Amy rang "come home, Dad. We're all here now. Pasties and mince pies and...

"We'll go sledging in the park?"

"Of course"

I tarried to put out nuts, seeds, water and fat-balls for birds, Garlic stems were poking out through the snow in two beds; winter onions too. But for disturbance around our snowman, the plot lies under the snow, its soil teeming with dormant life. The burgeoning of summer is hardly imaginable. The bees are silent, clustered in winter around the queen; living off honey. The scene is black and white, but for Oliver's warm red coat and flags on the fruit cage.

** ** **

Our park has a special glamour under snow. Amy, Guy, Hannah, Oliver, Oscar dog and I walk over the rail bridge to the other side of the park with its bandstand, and steeper contours, good for sledging. 

We all have a go on our plastic sledges. I slide on my front, the better to steer with my toes. The children are fearless, sitting upright, veering into trees, tipping over. Up we stumble and down we go again - together and in turns dodging trees, the metal fence near the foot of the run, whooping, shouting, laughing with others sharing the slope,...

... until the sky tunes itself to dusk. We head home dragging the children on sledges. 

"I love seeing the street lights through the trees" I said to Amy. We're in a lovely city park remote from feral winter.

Dusk in Handsworth Park

** ** ** **
With many others, we've been helping Jan Kimber campaign against building houses over most of the Lea Hall Allotments. Jan and I evoked Handsworth Allotments Information Group (HAIG) - the small group that I'd set up to campaign against building houses over all the old Victoria Jubilee Allotments, where I now have my plot.

Lea Hall Allotments on Google Maps 

The plan to build on Lea Hall Allotments

Planning application 2017/08883/PA was submitted, on 25th October 2017, by Countryside Properties to build 110 new homes at the Lea Hall allotments site on Wood Lane, in Handsworth Wood. 'A mixture of detached, semi-detached and terraced, 79 of these 3+4 bed homes will be for sale and the other 31 will be for private rent.' My objection sent, with others, to Birmingham City Council Planning Department:

I wish to express my objection to planning application 2017/08883/PA to build on Lea Hall Allotments.
Allotments have legal protection under the the Small Holdings and Allotments Act 1908, unless it can be shown there is no demand for plots.
To suppress demand, Lea Hall Allotments Committee have been engaged in a ‘managed’ retreat from responsibility to look after these allotments, turning a statutorily protected green space into a profitable windfall site for housing.
This strategy, to empty allotment sites and suppress demand for plots,  in order to sell them, was criticised in the report of the Select Committee on Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Fifth Report ‘The Future For Allotments’ 11 June 1998, which described what’s been happening at Lea Hall Allotments as ‘constructive non-maintenance’.
Members of Lea Hall Allotments Committee have colluded with Countryside Properties (the second developer with whom they have had recent dealings), in ‘constructive non-maintenance’, by:

- not advertising plots and rejecting applications for them
- abandoning all but minimal maintenance, and failing to invest in site infrastructure,
- unnecessarily cutting down some of the site’s mature trees,
- repeatedly telling plot holders that plans to build on the site have already been agreed,
- excluding the contribution of women plot-holders to promoting the site by prohibiting them from committee deliberations, 

The applicant claims suitable substitute plots are available on other allotment sites. This is not a case that has been easy for them to make, as the Lea Hall Allotments site is, or would be if properly managed, uniquely attractive, facing open green space to the north (across a railway line which assists security), with woodlands on its edge, good drainage and an exceptionally well equipped clubhouse with bar, toilets, a bowling green and facilities for meetings and entertainment.
This application by Countryside Properties threatens to remove yet more green space from one of  our city’s finest Victorian suburbs, contrary to guidance in Birmingham City Council’s ‘Mature suburbs: Guidelines to control residential intensification - Feb 2008’.
Properly managed  and advertised, Lea Hall Allotments, left as allotments and conservation area, open to the public, would be a most valuable community asset.
There is a significant deficit of open space in Lozells & East Handsworth Ward. The proximity of the application site to Perry Hall playing field, quoted by the applicant as an example of green space availability, is compromised by the railway line between New Street and Walsall that runs along the northern boundary of the neighbourhood.
The new allotments in the applicant’s proposal cover only 24% of the existing site and they are far smaller than the normal average of 200 square metres in other city allotments..
The woodland in the north east corner of the site provides screening and noise protection for residents of Lea Hall Road, serves as a visual amenity for users of Perry Hall Playing Fields, is a habitat for a rich variety of flora and fauna, and contributes to the area’s drainage.
It seems especially unwise to allow this development on greenfield land given the forthcoming analysis by West Midlands Combined Authority on the remediation and development of brownfield land (West Midlands Land Commission - Final Report to the West Midlands Combined Authority Board. 9th February 2017). 

A tour around Lea Hall Allotments on 22nd November

Jan Kimber describes Countryside Properties' plans for Lea Hall Allotments at Birchfield Neighbourhood Forum - 30 Nov 2017

'Κορακιανίτες και Ένωση'

I've just seen an intriguing post on the website of Ano Korakiana quoting the current Mayor of Corfu, John Kourkoulas, throwing light on a puzzle presented near the time Linda and I first arrived in Corfu in December 2007. Knowing how much the matter interested me, Thanassis Spingos, artist and author of the village website, and Kostas Apergis, Ano Korakiana's historian posted the following letter:

Dear Simon. It is said that before the Union of the Ionian Islands with Greece (1864), inhabitants of Ano Korakiana signed a 'paper' asking the British Government to keep the islands under Britain ... We have been looking for this paper for years at the Greek archives without result. We wonder if you can help us by searching this paper in British archives (Parliament, Colonies archives, Foreign Office etc). We are sure that one of the names that signed the paper is Panos, Panayiotis or Panagiotis Metallinos (Μετταλινος). He was the 'leader'. A similar paper has been signed by inhabitants of Kinopiastes (another village in Corfu) and one village in Zakynthos island...

Discussing village history on the balcony

I searched in the British National Archives.  Fascinating; with many insights on the period of British Protectorate of the Ionian Islands, Ἡνωμένον Κράτος τῶν Ἰονίων Νήσων (1815-1864), but I found no trace of that 'paper'.

Searching the Ionian Protectorate archives at Kew

I knew that, until only the last few years, the philharmonia bands of Kinopiastes and Ano Korakiana did not go into the city to play and march at the annual enosis celebrations every 26th May. I have heard, in the village, that it was not that Ano Korakianas and others in Corfu and throughout the Ionian Islands (the Heptanisi*) wanted to stay under British Protection. While many did support enosis with Mother Greece, there were a significant number of radicals - rizopastis - who did not want the islands to be 'transferred' to Greece and the notoriously corrupt seat of national government in Athens. They wanted an Independent Ionian Republic, Επτάνησος Πολιτεία - like the brief Septinsular State that lasted seven years from 1800. They resented the almost casual, pragmatic way the British washed their hands of their Protectorate and more or less handed the islands over to Greece as a bargaining pawn, knowing that Athens was an easier focus of British interest than the volatile Ionians when it came to pursuing British interests in the Eastern Mediterranean.

See...the words of the Ionian rizopasti Ilias Zervos, contemplating the consequences for the seven islands - the Septinsular Republic as might have been - embracing enosis with a Greece governed from Athens....Zervos’ of Cephalonia believed Britain's power over lonian affairs did not decrease with the end of the Ionian Protectorate in 1864, instead the islands became ‘a Pandora's Box’ for British influence on Hellenic politics [Eleni Calligas (1994), Rizospastai' (Radical-Unionists): politics and nationalism in the British Protectorate of the Ionian Islands, 1815-1964, A9m British Library Shelfmark DX187456 Ph.D., London, London School of Economics, 44-9204. p.300]. Zervos found himself opposing his radicalism to that of Zante's Constantinos Lombardos with his popular and nationalistic triumphing enosis with 'Mother Greece'. Instead of ‘freedom’, Athens had given Corfu and her sisters:

...the pollutant of political corruption, which has brought this miserable nation to its present deterioration and produced as many unscrupulous exploiters as a decaying corpse produces worms.
Eleni Calligas on p.301 of her thesis, quoting from Elia Zervos’ autobiography Βιογραθία Ηλία Ζερβού Ιαχωβάτου Συντεθείσα παρ αυτού (1880) edited by Ch. S. Theodoratos, Athens 1974

Ano Korakiana's village lawyer,  John Kourkoulas, Mayor of Corfu, since the 2014 elections, has been assembling an album of historical notes, including press cuttings, which he's shared with friends in the village. It includes an account of the much debated subject of the reaction of the village to the ending of the British Protectorate of the Ionian Islands and union - enosis - with Greece in 1864...

'Κορακιανίτες και Ένωση' Korakiana and Union 22.01.16              

Ο χωριανός μας δικηγόρος Γιάννης Κούρκουλος, π. Δήμαρχος Κερκυραίων, εδώ και αρκετούς μήνες «συνθέτει» σε περιορισμένο αριθμό και διανέμει σε γνωστούς και φίλους ένα ολιγοσέλιδο «αυτοσχέδιο» έντυπο που περιέχει δικές του σημειώσεις και απόψεις, καθώς και αποκόματα εφημερίδων με ευρέως ενδιαφέροντος θέματα της επικαιρότητας, αλλά και της ιστορίας. Έχοντας τη χαρά να είμαστε ανάμεσα στους αποδέκτες αυτού του υλικού, αντλήσαμε από την πρόσφατη έκδοση μία αναφορά στο πολυσυζητημένο και συνάμα ενδιαφέρον θέμα που αφορά στην «Κορακιάνα και την Ένωση με την Ελλάδα».
«Κορακιανίτες και η Ένωση» είναι ο τίτλος του σχετικού έρθρου στο οποίο ο Γιάννη Κούρκουλος αναφέρει τα εξής:
"Βρήκα επιτέλους ένα δημοσίευμα που είχα διαβάσει πριν από 34 χρόνια, το οποίο είχε χαθεί μέσα στο αχανές προσωπικό μου αρχείο. Πρόκειται για ένα κείμενο του μακαρίτη δημοσιογράφου και ιστορικού Κώστα Δαφνή δημοσιευμένο στα φύλλα της 8ης και 15ης Μαρτίου 1971 της εφημερίδας του «Κερκυραϊκά Νέα», με τίτλο «Ο Γλάδστων, οι Κοινοπιάτες και η Κορακιάνα». Και παρά το ότι έχω αποφασίσει να σταματήσω τη σύνταξη χειρογράφων (μετ’ αποκομμάτων εφημερίδων) φυλλαδίων, δεν μπορώ να το στερήσω από όσους από τους φίλους και γνωστούς μου έκαμαν την τιμή να διαβάσουν το τελευταίο μου φυλλάδιο. Πολύ περισσότερο, που το κείμενο αυτό αποτελεί συνέχεια των όσων εκθέτω για το ίδιο θέμα.
Γράφει λοιπόν ο Κώστας Δαφνής:
«Ακόμη και σήμερα η λαϊκή παράδοση θέλει ότι οι Κορακιανίτες και οι Κοινοπιαστινοί δεν ψήφισαν υπέρ της Ενώσεως της Επτανήσου με την Ελλάδα... Κατά πόσον η παράδοση αυτή στηρίζεται σε πραγματικά γεγονότα δεν θα το ερευνήσουμε σήμερα. Άλλη αιτία, σχετική βέβαια μας οδηγεί στο ίδιο θέμα. Τοποθετείται 5 χρόνια πριν από την Ένωση και έχει σχέση με την αποστολή του Γλάδστωνος στα Επτάνησα. Βρισκόμαστε στα τέλη του 1958 (SB note: 1858?), ο άγγλος απεσταλμένος περιοδεύει στα νησιά και στην κερκυραϊκή ύπαιθρο για να σχηματίσει άμεση αντίληψη για τις πραγματικές διαθέσεις του λαού και να σφυγμομετρήσει το λαϊκό φρόνημα. Μεταξύ άλλων επισκέπτεται τους Κοινοπιάστες και την Κορακιάνα. Για την πρώτη επίσκεψη γράφει σχετικά η εφημερίδα «ΝΕΑ ΕΠΟΧΗ» της 13ης Ιανουαρίου 1859 με την περιγραφή της επισκέψεως στους Κοινοπιάστες, όπου και εμφανίζεται ότι οι Κοινοπιαστινοί σε ερώτηση του Γλάδστωνος «τι θέλουσι: μεταρρύθμισιν ή ένωσιν», απάντησαν «μεταρρύθμιση», γεγονός που προφανώς τον ευχαρίστησε.
Συνεχίζοντας ο Κ. Δαφνής αναφέρει ότι «τα σημειώματα αυτά (της εφημερίδας) δεν έμειναν χωρίς απάντηση, αφού  στο επόμενο φύλλο της, η «ΝΕΑ ΕΠΟΧΗ» δημοσιεύει τα εξής:
 «Ελάβομεν επιστολήν υπό του Προεστώτος του χωρίου Σταυρού κ. Αντωνίου Ραρή, δι ής καταψεύδει λόσα δια του Παραρτήματος είπομεν. Ελάβομεν ετέραν επιστολήν υπό του κ. Χ.Γ. Εμμανουήλ Πουλημένου και άλλων προς κατάψευσιν όσων εν τω παραρτήματι είπομεν περό Κυνοπιαστών. Άπαντα ταύτα θέλομεν καταχωρίση προσεχώς»
Και πραγματικά στο φύλλο 49/2-2-1859 δημοσιεύονταν η απάντησις. Τη μεταγράφομεν ολόκληρη:
«Κυνοπιάστες, τη 21η Ιανουαρίου 1859: Υπό των υποφαινομένων κατοίκων του χω­ρίου Κυνοπιάστες, παρακαλείσθε να καταχώρισητε εις το φύλλον σας τα ακόλουθα: Δια του παραρτήματος ύπ’ άριθ. 46 της εφημερίδος, τινές εις ημάς άγνωστοι, επρόσβαλαν και ημάς και τον κ. Γλάδστωνα, ότι ερχόμενος εις το χωρίον μας του επαρρησιάσθησαν πολλοί των κατοίκων και ότι ο κ. Γλάδστων μας ηρώτησεν τί θέλομεν, μεταρρύθμισιν ή ένωσιν; και ότι ημείς τω απηντήσαμεν μεταρρύθμισιν και εις την απόκρισιν ταύτην ευχαριστήθη τα μέγιστα και ότι ο υπασπιστής του έγραψεν εις Κυνοπιάστες (και όχι Κυνοπιάστρες) θέλουν μεταρρύθμισιν και ότι έδωκεν εις δια­φόρους από ολίγα χρήματα και ανεχώρησε, και άλλα όπου αν δώσωμε την απάντησιν αμαυρόνωμεν τον εαυτόν μας. Ούτε μία αλήθεια εγγράφθη περί του αντικειμένου και ημείς στοχαζόμεθα τα αυτά άτομα ως ανόητα, κηρύττοντα ουχί ως φυσικά τέκνα των Ελλήνων, αλλά ως αφύσικα και συκοφάντας. Η δε αλήθεια έχει ούτω: «Την ημέραν των Χριστουγέννων, τας τέσσαρας ώρας μ.μ. εξερχόμενοι πολλοί εκ του ιερού μετά τον εσπερινόν, έφθασε με την άμαξαν και ο κ. Γλάδστων εις την πλατείαν της πρωτευούσης της ιδίας Εκκλησί­ας, και ευθύς εισήλθεν εντός της Εκκλησίας, με την συνοδίαν του και θεωρήσας με περιέργειαν εφιλοδώρησε τον εφημέριον και τον υπηρέτην. Ημείς, χάριν περιεργείας, ερωτήσαμεν τον αμαξηλάτη, τις είναι; και είπεν, ο κ. Γλάδστων... Ευθύς όλοι όσοι παρευρέθησαν παρόντες (διότι οι κάτοικοι του χωρίου αριθμούν έως οκτακόσιοι και ουχί τριάκοντα), τω επεδώσαμεν τον πρεπούμενον χαιρετισμόν και τον συνωδεύσαμεν μέχρι των οσπητίων της κληρονομίας κ. Βιλέτα, όπου θεωρήσας την θέσιν, πολύ ευχαριστήθη. Ακολούθως, πάλιν ήλθαμεν εις την Εκκλησί­αν, όπου είχαν διάφορα γλυκά, (κατά την συνήθειαν της ημέρας), εκ των οποίων έλαβεν ο κ. Γλάδστων και έδωκε πολλών παιδιών εκεί ευρεθέντων, επλήρωσε και κατόπιν αμοιβαίων χαιρετισμών ανεχώρησε... ΄Οχι μόνον όπου ούτε ωμιλήσαμεν δι’ όλου διά ένωσιν ή μεταρρύθμισιν! άλλα ούτε το είχομεν κατά νουν! Εκ του άλλου ημείς είμεθα απόγονοι των Ελλήνων και το επιθυμούμεν πολύ περισσότερον από κάποιους όπου πλαστά λέγουν, θέλουν την ένωσιν... Πλην κατά το παρόν, ο άνθρωπος πρέπει να συμμορφώνεται με τον ορθόν λόγον καί όχι με λόγους ατάκτους και ο­πού δεν έχουν ισχύν» Τέλος ημείς εφέρθημεν εις τον κ. Γλάδστωνα με εξευμενισμόν, τον ευχαριστούμεν δια τον εδώ ερχομόν του και θέλει τω αποδώσωμεν προσωπικώς εν τω δωματίω, όπου κατοικεί, τας ευχαριστήσεις μας καθ’ ο εντιμοτάτω υποκειμένω».
Ταύτα και υποσημειούμεθα I. π. Γεωργίου Χριστόδουλος I. Έμμανουήλ Πουλημένος
Τη δημοσίευση της επιστολής η εφημερίς συνώδευσε με την εξής υποσημείωση: «Συγχαιρόμεθα τους κυρίους τούτους και το χωρίον Κυνοπιάστες και επειδή ημείς δεν έχομεν σκοπόν ουδένα να προσβάλλωμεν, δημοσιεύομεν ευχαρίστως την δήλωσιν των κυρίων τούτων»....
Συνεχίζοντας ο Κ. Δαφνής αναφέρει ότι, ακολούθως, στο φύλλο 51 της 13ης Φεβρ. 1859 (της ΝΕΑΣ ΕΠΟΧΗΣ) βλέπουμε να δημοσιεύεται επιστολή του «εκ Κορακιάνας συνδρομητού» Σταυράκη Μεταλληνού του Σπυρίδωνος, στην όποια ο επιστολογράφος εξιστορεί με λεπτομέρειες τα της συναντήσεώς του με τον Γλάδστωνα, όταν επεσκέφθη το χωριό του και τα όσα ελέχθησαν μεταξύ των. Ο Σταυράκης Μεταλληνός διερμή­νευσε με παρρησία στον ΄Αγγλο απεσταλμένο τα παράπονα των κατοίκων εναντίον της Προστασίας, για να επαναλάβη στο τέλος ότι αίτημα των κατοίκων ήταν η ΄Ενωσις με την Ελλάδα. «Ημείς, είπεν ο Μεταλληνός, είμεθα ΄Ελληνες και Χριστιανοί Όρθόδοξοι, τουτέστιν έχομεν κοινά με τους δούλους και ελευθέρους αδελφούς μας κατά την καταγωγήν και την γλώσσαν και την θρησκείαν, και ως εκ τούτου έπιθυμούμεν να ενωθώμεν με το ΄Εθνος μας. Το εθνικόν τούτο αίσθημά μας καμμία δύναμις δεν δύναται να το εκριζώση εκ της καρδίας μας». Και, έκλεισε την επιστολήν του ο Σταυράκης Μεταλληνός: «Ταύτα είναι, κ. Συντάκτα, τα διατρέξαντα εν Κορακιάνα, τα όποια και σας παρακαλώ να δημοσιεύ­σετε όσον τάχιστα όπως καταψευσθή πας ος τα εναντίον διατεινόμενος και σπερμολογών».
Από όλα αυτά, (αναρωτιέται ο Κ. Δαφνής) τί συνάγεται; Τό απλό συμπέρασμα ότι η ύλη της ιστορίας δεν προσφέρεται πάντοτε καθαρή και αποτοξινωμένη από τα πάθη και τις προσωπικές συχνά αντιθέσεις της στιγμής. Και ότι χρειάζεται μεγάλη προσπά­θεια στον ιστορικό για να ξεκαθαρίση το ιστορικώς αληθινό από τα επιστρώματα, που το έχουν αλλοιώσει".
ΓΙΑΝΝΗΣ ΚΟΥΡΚΟΥΛΟΣ

* The Heptanisis or the Ionian Islands are an archipelago of different-sized islands. The largest are Zakynthos or Zante, Corfu, Ithaca, Kephalonia, Lefkada, Corfu, Paxos and, far further south, Kythera; the smaller ones, Antipaxos, Anti-Kythera, the Strofades archipelago, and the Diapontian isles of Erikoussa, Mathraki, Othoni, and Meganisi. 

We may never be sure about this matter. It is obviously a sensitive issue - with the imputation, quite unfair, that these villages were somehow less patriotic than the rest of Corfu. It circumvents the powerful story captured in her thesis, by the scholar Eleni Calligas, of the rival visions of those two Ionian politicians - the rizopasti Ilias Zervos lakovatos (1814-1894) with his hope for an independent Ionian Republic, and the populist Constantinos Lombardos (1820-1888) who pursued union with Greece. I would like to see the primary source evidence surrounding the imputation that the reasons the Philharmonia's of these two villages - Ano Korakiana and Kinopiastes - did not, for more than a century since 1864, attend the celebrations of enosis with Mother Greece - was no more than a matter of speculation and scuttlebutt «...τα εναντίον διατεινόμενος και σπερμολογών».

**** **** ****
A letter from The Gunmakers Arms, Gun Quarter, Birmingham City centre

Hi Simon. I am interested in potentially booking you as a speaker. Could you give me some more information on the Birmingham-related talks you have please.
We are planning to host a series of science-based talks in addition to a series of talks based around an historical theme at our pub, the Gunmakers Arms. We have a loose theme of topics including anything related to Birmingham, alcohol (and related industries) and sport. If you or any of your colleagues could deliver talks which would be suitable please let me know.
The speakers we have lined up so far are listed below.
Regards
Darren, Office Manager

Historical Talk Series. Kay Hunter – ‘The Last Public Hanging in Birmingham’, Tuesday 26th JanuaryRuth Cherrington, Club Historians – ‘The Social History of Working Men’s Clubs’, Thursday 18th FebruaryDr Malcolm Dick, University of Birmingham – ‘The Industrial Enlightenment and the Luner Men in the 18th Century’, Wednesday 30th March Professor David Williams, Loughborough University – ‘The Early Days of the Birmingham Gun Quarter, Tuesday 17th May 0121 439 7253 Two Towers Brewery, Unit 1 Mott Street Industrial Estate, Hockley B19 3HE

Dear Darren
Interesting to hear from you, and so glad to see The Gunmakers back in business.
You enquire about my ‘colleagues'. As a local speaker I’m a one-man band. I talk only about the 'Founding of Handsworth Park' towards the end of the 19th century, based on the research for my story of our local park -  I have film, texts, maps, postcards and photographs to illustrate a talk that can be between 20 minutes and an hour, with space for discussion and questions. I charge £30, but if there’s a favourite local charity at The Gunmakers I encourage my hosts to have a collection to pass on themselves. You can buy me a choice of Baskerville Bitter and Hockley Gold (:))
As a founder member of the Friends of Handsworth Park in 1994 I was among a small group lobbying to save Handsworth Park, helping organise a campaign which finally brought about a ceremonial re-opening in Summer 2006, I contributed to Birmingham City Council’s winning £9,000,000 lottery grant that funded the park's restoration during the early years of this century.
I’ve lived with my family in Handsworth, 300 yards from the Park’s main gate, for forty years. I was a lecturer at Birmingham University’s School of Public Policy between 1973 and 2010. I am Hon.Sec of a local charity ‘Handsworth Helping Hands’ (find us on Facebook).
To support the winning lottery bid to restore Handsworth Park I wrote a history of the founding of the Park. First paragraph:
"As the civic gospel of municipal improvement spread from Birmingham into the estates of Handsworth, its local government leaders saw a public park as a benefit for the district. Following the setting up of an education board and a free library, the adoption and proper kerbing of roads, street lighting, tramways and the construction of sewers,influential voices in the district began to speak of the need for a “lung” in the city. They did not pursue the idea simply out of expediency or to raise the value of their properties. Such self-interest was present - used unashamedly to strengthen their case among the practically minded citizens of Handsworth - but opposition to the Park from that quarter was at times so intense that calculative motives alone would not have carried the project through.” p.1, Baddeley, S (1997) The Founding of Handsworth Park 1882-1898, Birmingham University
I tell the story of how our local park was founded, despite opposition from rurally minded people, who could not imagine how the Staffordshire countryside would in a few decades become a suburb of the great working city, its populace grateful for the foresight that saved a few fields to create a public park - now just 2.1 miles from the Gunmakers Arms, or 15 minutes on my bicycle. The idea of a park in Handsworth was also opposed by people who didn’t want ‘the roughs of Birmingham’, as they saw them, ‘despoiling' the attractive suburb to which they’d escaped from the city in whose industrial quarters they were making their money. Here’s me talking about my enthusiasm for the park a few years ago

If I can answer any more questions do get in touch.
I tend to be in and out of the UK for just under half the year but I’m easy enough on to contact and would be delighted to speak on my favourite subject.
Kindest regards
Simon

*** *** *** ***

It was the best of years, it was the worst of years - 

Richard Pine, The Irish Times, 26th Jan 2016

It was (to paraphrase Dickens) the best of years, it was the worst of years. On January 25th last year Greeks elected their first ever left-wing (as distinct from socialist) government. This, Syriza, led by Alexis Tsipras, was both A Good Thing and Not Quite Such A Good Thing. Dickens continues the opening of A Tale of Two Cities by pairing wisdom/foolishness, belief/incredulity, light/darkness and hope/despair. In the past year Greeks have had all of these in excess. The jubilation at the (apparent) rejection of the bailout in the July referendum, followed by the realisation that nothing, but nothing, had changed, underlined how fragile and fickle the democratic process can be...
...And the past year has emphasised that there are two Greeces. Not the us-and- them, have-and-have not division, but the underlying causes that are, apparently, indelible. On one side the cancerous corruption favouring the oligarchs and plutocrats, and on the other what Myles na gCopaleen would have called “the Plain People of Greece” who just want to get on with their lives.
The corrupt state is the result of decades of Plain People innocently, blindly and stupidly trusting politicians, and one year of well-meaning but naive policies cannot undo that corruption. Former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said (in Kilkenny, interviewed by RTÉ’s Miriam O’Callaghan): “The oligarchs were completely untouched by the troika”. And he said Syriza’s surrender to the troika “makes them absolutely incapable of effecting change”...
...The past year has been wake-up time for everyone. The international financial community is waking up to the fact that for so long it denied that the Greek debt could be restructured; it’s now admitting that the austerity programme was a textbook remedy for an as yet undiagnosed problem which they didn’t understand.
The EU negotiators are beginning to admit that most of the figures bandied about are in fact illusory and that most of the negotiations have been a cosmetic job to obscure the fact that neither side has any faith in the figures.
Tsipras is waking up to realise that, in order to stay in power, he has to rely on big business, which is represented in his cabinet by ministers who, like some of the county councillors named in the recent RTÉ Investigates programme, had “overlooked” their declaration of interests and understated their assets.
Greeks would have watched the RTÉ programme and said “So what? What’s new? What’s there to shout about?” Clientelism and bribery are so endemic that these blips would never have got air time in Greece, not least because most media are controlled by the plutocrats....As journalist Nick Malkoutzis says, Greeks are “torn between love for their country and hate for what it has become”. Throughout my book Greece Through Irish Eyes (SB note: my review of RP's book) I emphasised the need to both love and mourn Greece: to recognise that within everything lovable there is also something to mourn, and vice versa. I mourn the events and circumstances that created the past year of triumphs and defeats.
But I love what I see in the village where I live: the way parents cherish their children and want to give them the best chance in life. I love the sight of truckloads of olives going to the oilery at the end of the village street; the way I can barter fruit for eggs with my neighbour. And I love it that a retired telephone engineer will fix my phone when it’s struck by lightning, and refuse any payment, saying, “Give me a copy of your book instead. It’ll be valuable when you’re dead.” 

Late November in the city

Centenary Square late Saturday afternoon

When I'm in another place it's autumn dusk in a Christmas city I see and almost feel. I like the bustle of Birmingham's small centre, police and PCSOs courteously directing pedestrian traffic...

Outside New Street Station, Stephenson Street

...I skirt people jams, weaving among stationary cars, bumper to bumper - Oscar in the front box of my Brompton; a satisfying detachment from an unmadding crowd, we descend to the quiet of the waterways...

Brindley Place near Gas Street Basin

...where the dog jumps down, to lift a leg, before cantering in front and behind - a small white blob just visible in the ambient light of the town. I pedal a familiar route along the Birmingham Mainline, now and then a sound like an animal in anguish precedes the rumble of heavy wheels and yellow windows streaking above me, and along the glassy water of the canal.

Turning into the Soho Loop I'm passing warehouses and chimneys in silhouette, between the real and the reflected - Whistler nocturnes.

The Birmingham Mainline Canal

The Soho Loop

*** *** ***
I am delighted that the gutters and downpipes I fixed with some labour and cost to the roof of my shed - 10' x 8' only - have harvested me so much water. I should have another barrel at least...

One of my water butts and a chair I mended on Sunday

There's not much to be planted now and water is the least of my needs. My reading of an allotment website suggested winter peas and hardy broad beans - Aguadulce -  so I bought seeds from Hirons, up the road...

On Sunday afternoon I sowed the beans.  I dug through a bed which had held cabbage, what was left of them sending up clouds of white fly as I pulled the roots, forking over ground regularly dug already; larger pebbles removed, couch roots pulled, compost and topsoil added. My work brought up yet more stones and some couch roots - but far fewer. The ground here really is getting nicer.

Mindful of things I'd not known until recently, I laid eight carpet tiles down the middle of the patch I'd dug - so as to avoid the slightest compression of soil in which I would be sowing. I coarse-raked then fine-raked the soil, then pushed the broad bean seeds gently into the ground, zig-zag pattern, as the packet instructions advised, about six inches apart...

...I wheeled down a barrow load of topsoil from my store in a builder's bag and laid it on top of what I'd sown, then firmed the seed bed with the back of a spade. Oscar watched the park from his place by the iron fence - barking occasionally at passing dogs.

It suggests on the packet that beans sown now, should be ready in seven months - June and July 2015. 'Seedlings should appear in 14-24 days'. Later in the week I'll sow the hardy peas.
*** *** ***
Another pleasure - back to work as Hon.Sec of Handsworth Helping Hands...

HHH committee - Denise, Charles, Linda (Hon.Treasurer) Jimoh, Mike (Chair) and Simon (Hon Sec)

Bogan skips arrive - one of two

At one of HHH's 'Skip-it Don't Tip-it' days (photo: Lin Baddeley)

HHH works with Council Fleet and Waste - Kabs in the sweeper in Haughton Road

...rubbish collector and white van driver.

Back in Handsworth - Lozells Road

*** *** ***
Amy brought Oliver over for us to do some childminding...

He slept in our room as usual in the cot beside our bed. I got him up in the morning, changed a nappy and made him breakfast before heading, with Oscar to Handsworth Park. A deal of some kind was going down as we approached the main gate...

...yet once inside we were among the birds - pigeons, a swan, ducks, seagulls, geese, coots and even a cormorant flying by showing that fish have returned to the lake.

Hide-and-seek around the oldest tree in the park

The playground

We walk the same paths - a  postcard circa 1900 when our park was called Victoria Park (courtesy Dorrie Lopacka)

*** *** *** ***
PRESS RELEASE on the Ano Korakiana website about the future of the valued Health Centre at Pyrgi, Corfu - four kilometres from Ano Korakiana

Νέο κάλεσμα για το Κέντρο Υγείας Γράφει ο/η Κβκ  
29.11.14
                                                     ΔΕΛΤΙΟ ΤΥΠΟΥ
Την Τρίτη 25 Νοεμβρίου πραγματοποιήθηκε συνάντηση της Συντονιστικής Επιτροπής Αγώνα για την υπεράσπιση του Κέντρου Υγείας Αγίου Μάρκου με τον Περιϕερειάρχη  Ιόνιων Νησιών.
Κοινή ήταν η αγωνία για το μέλλον του Κέντρου Υγείας και η διάθεση αγωνιστικής διεκδίκησης της καλής λειτουργίας της πρωτοβάθμιας και δευτεροβάθμιας υγειονομικής περίθαλψης σε όλο το νησί και την Περιϕέρεια.
Η Συντονιστική Επιτροπή Αγώνα καλεί όλους τους πολίτες στο επόμενο βήμα διαμαρτυρίας, τη Δευτέρα 1 Δεκεμβρίου στις 11:00 στο Γενικό Νοσοκομείο Κέρκυρας.
Η Συντονιστική Επιτροπή

New appeal for the Health Center
Written by KBR
29/11/14
                                                   
 PRESS RELEASE
On Tuesday, November 25, there was a meeting of the Coordinating Committee for the defense of St. Mark's Health Centre with the regional governor of the Ionian Islands.
Shared anxiety was expressed about the future of the health center and the need for more vigourous attention to ensuring proper delivery of primary and secondary health care across the island and the Region.
The Campaign Coordinating Committee calls on all citizens to continue and maintain their protest, on Monday, December 1st at 11:00 at the General Hospital of Corfu.
The Steering Committee

*****
Article in The Observer, Sunday 30 November 2014, about the still seldom told history behind the Greek Civil War Ελληνικός Εμφύλιος Πόλεμος...When 28 civilians were killed in Athens, it wasn’t the Nazis who were to blame, it was the British. Ed Vulliamy and Helena Smith reveal how Churchill’s shameful decision to turn on the partisans who had fought on our side in the war sowed the seeds for the rise of the far right in Greece today:

Late summer 1944 German forces withdraw from most of Greece, which is taken over by local partisans. Most of them are members of ELAS, the armed wing of the National Liberation Front, EAM, which included the Communist KKE party

October 1944 Allied forces, led by General Ronald Scobie, enter Athens, the last German-occupied area, on 13 October. Georgios Papandreou returns from exile with the Greek government 

2 December 1944 Rather than integrate ELAS into the new army, Papandreou and Scobie demand the disarmament of all guerrilla forces. Six members of the new cabinet resign in protest 

3 December 1944 Violence in Athens after 200,000 march against the demands. More than 28 are killed and hundreds are injured. The 37-day Dekemvrianá begins. Martial law is declared on 5 December 

January/February 1945 Gen Scobie agrees to a ceasefire in exchange for ELAS withdrawal. In February the Treaty of Varkiza is signed by all parties. ELAS troops leave Athens with 15,000 prisoners 

1945/46 Right-wing gangs kill more than 1,100 civilians, triggering civil war when government forces start battling the new Democratic Army of Greece (DSE), mainly former ELAS soldiers 

1948-49 DSE suffers a catastrophic defeat in the summer of 1948, with nearly 20,000 killed. In July 1949 Tito closes the Yugoslav border, denying DSE shelter. Ceasefire signed on 16 October 1949 

21 April 1967 Right-wing forces seize power in a coup d’état. The junta lasts until 1974. Only in 1982 are communist veterans who had fled overseas allowed to return to Greece

....and Richard Pine's latest article in the Irish Times, Monday 1st Dec'14....

....Greece commemorates frequently and assiduously. The key dates after 1821 are 1864 (the first major growth of the Greek state with the acquisition of the Ionian islands); the black mark of 1922 (when Greece was ignominiously defeated by Turkey in its feeble attempt to invade Istanbul); “Ochi” day, October 28th, 1940, when Greece rejected the Italian threat of invasion; and another black mark in the form of the civil war after the second World War. More recently, 1974 saw the dismissal of the seven-year-old military dictatorship.
Some of these are marked by activities to keep remembrance alive: “Ochi” day is habitually celebrated in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second city, with a presidential address. The suppression of the communist partisans in the civil war is the subject of annual pilgrimages to places of mass execution (such as Lazareto - Λαζαρέτο - island in Corfu bay...see also). This year, the 40th anniversary of the student uprising that brought about the fall of the colonels was widely celebrated. All of this raises the questions: what is to be remembered? Why?....