In Handsworth Park - three little birds

Oliver, our grandson, in Handsworth Park, with Guy, Amy and, our friend, Liz expecting a daughter soon

Liz came to us with Amy and Guy and Oliver on Sunday. A dropsical blanket of cloud lay over the city, ragged underneath, releasing showers. It was Carnival in Handsworth Park, without the right weather for parades or dancing. Glimpses, instead, of goose-bumped flesh in sequined motley under drizzle. With intervals of downpour. Security - police and G4 - were everywhere. We came in around 3.30, strolling from home to the Hamstead Road gate. Lin was chosen for random search, patted down and bag checked. We strolled and milled between vast speakers vibrating my chest cavity. There seemed to be lots of fat people about and the music was, at least for an hour, a recorded Marley medley, and just for a moment - with "Every little thing gonna be all right" - that wonderful song of many wonderful songs lulled me away from my small troubles.

Don't worry about a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right.
Singin': "Don't worry about a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right!"

Rise up this mornin',
Smiled with the risin' sun,
Three little birds
Perch by my doorstep
Singin' sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin', "This is my message to you-ou-ou:"

Singin': "Don't worry 'bout a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right...

We waited for the Carnival Parade ending according to notices at 4.30 in the park, then learned there’d been just six floats; that the parade had set out early along Soho Road, arrived in the park at four and dispersed – a contrast with better days when everything and everyone was reliably late as part of the style. Susan Green, long time part of Handsworth, a neighbour and friend writes on FB:

Carnival was dreadful this year. The worst ever. I had friends visiting from out of town and I was embarrassed. Carnival has now been totally hi jacked by those who have no interest in the art form but just want to have a Jamaican style dance hall event with booming sound systems in our park and use carnival as a fig leaf. Around tea time - well after carnival had ended they turned up in droves for the afters party in the park. They do not support carnival, they can't even be bothered to turn up in the afternoon to support it. My heart goes out to those such as Carnival artist Professor Black who work such long hours to try and keep Carnival going but who get little proper support from BCC or indeed from the Carnival committee. if they want to run a Jamaican dance hall cultural event they should be made to apply for support in their own right and make their own arguments for it instead of hi jacking Carnival . Simmer Down the reggae festival run last month in the same location was well organised, safe, an excellent family event with great live music and those of us living on the doorstep didn't have to suffer loud sounds until late at night and aggressive crowds milling about in the streets after all the so called security and cops had clocked off.

Professor Black and some of his designs

***** ****
A note from Paul Peacock...re the ebook version of his biography of my stepfather...

The Jack Book is now online:Jack Hargreaves a Portrait 

*** *** ***
There is an apple tree bearing fruit; one marrow the size of a courgette; a crop of Jerusalem artichokes, a few rows of potatoes, a rhubarb, a few broad beans, a frame of runner beans - and of course there's flowers, lavender, buddleia, and small trees, pears, plum and cherry, so far still fruitless. My shed stands and in the last day I've done some mowing of the encroaching wild grass wild flower meadow that covers so much of my neglected allotment.

Γένεσις 3.19: Ἐν ἱδρῶτι τοῦ προσώπου σου φάγῃ τὸν ἄρτον σου ἕως τοῦ ἀποστρέψαι σε εἰς τὴν γῆν ἐξ ἧς ἐλήμφθης ὅτι γῆ εἶ καὶ εἰς γῆν ἀπελεύσῃ

I've got excuses for this neglect. None convinces me. But nor am I ashamed. I just know I have to persevere, continue learning;  be inventive. For over a year now, things have not been so good for the whole site. A small complaint by a friend about the 'remoteness' of our committee was met with indignant defensiveness. Clive Birch, who I've long known, secretary of the Birmingham and District Allotments Confederation became involved as a mediator. As things proceeded I, normally inclined to be partisan, wrote a note to Clive and X (the complainant):

Dear X and Clive
STRUGGLES ON THE VICTORIA JUBILEE
Thanks both of you for trying to resolve the real difficulties that exist and for showing respect.
I wish I could help but I feel that unless I take part in the work of our rather overburdened committee I’m not entitled to criticise.
We have a shared problem, yet it all began so excitingly when we opened the site in June 2010.

Opening day of the Victoria Jubilee Allotments from Simon Baddeley on Vimeo.

In these difficult economic times there is a serious lack of take up of plots on the VJA. This makes all allotments vulnerable - given the continued interest of developers in urban green field sites and government pressures to create more housing that does not infringe green belts or in-fill our  suburbs.
I also think there are VJA plot holders who, being new to allotments, have been discouraged by a mix of ill weather over two years and our challenging topsoil (Adrian Stagg admitted the developer had done an unsatisfactory job on this score and that BCC were minded to delay opening the site, but ‘we’ urged him to let us get started.).
On top of this, decisions by the site committee have not been based on talking to as many gardeners as possible. I also think that BCC Allotments section have for all sorts of understandable reasons been unable to give us much help with self-management. This is a problem across the UK of course.
The hedge cutting on the VJA (a familiar landmark, shelter and windbreak which we had earlier campaigned to save from the developer’s bulldozers) was a source of contention (given so many other more important things to be achieved like attracting more plot holders, helping those who were failing and holding site visitor events). The reasons given for cutting back the hedge and the last tree on the site - albeit a humble sycamore - are unconvincing, but that whole business was simply a straw on an overladen camel. We are surrounded by some of the most beautiful greenery in the city right next to Handsworth Park!
The VJA committee has struggled with high turnover, and lack of help from other gardeners, so that as well as isolating themselves they have themselves been isolated. Chicken and egg. I am as much a part of this as anyone.
The failure to change notices on the noticeboard, after two years even, is just a symptom. We need a special kind of rare leadership that will stir enthusiasm, keep up spirits and show inventive and creative ways to get the VJA back on the map within our community. I guess, given the right cues, we could all do it together! We badly need more sunshine among ourselves, and for relative novices, encouragement for the hard task of growing our own vegetables. There are a few brilliant gardeners on our site. I have already learned from them and they prove that good things can be achieved with hard work and perseverance, and some of the skills and craft too many of us are still struggling to acquire.
In short, Clive (and X) I think the VJA shares a problem of low morale and its consequences, but I’m sure that with decency and civility and generosity we will be able to put these difficult times behind us.
Right now we all need all the encouragement we can give and get.
Thanks for your continued interest Clive, and thanks X for having the bottle to raise your concerns which are not yours alone even tho’ at times that is how it must feel. My best wishes also to the committee who must be feeling ‘got at’. Please persevere. darkness before the dawn etc.
Kindest regards and best wishes and hopes of spreading good will. Please stick with us Clive! Feel free to call me in case I can add more to the drift of this letter. Simon. Handsworth Allotments Information Group (HAIG)

An email from Clive to X on 2 Aug:

X. Your comment ref fraud are noted and we can agree. Ref minutes of a meeting it is essential for their acceptance as a "true record" otherwise denial of validity of contents could ensue. We agree that open communication is essential but that information has to be correct and not misleading. Open committee meetings allow any tenant to see what is going on. Hedge - no dispute that it was a mess, BCC contractor has full responsibility! I agree with Simon's view that plot holders need a boost and committee and individuals can do this. Best wishes, Clive 

This BBC news story in June gives some context - Allotment keeping proves no walk in the garden. Betty Farruggia, the superb secretary at Walsall Road Allotments in Perry Barr is quoted saying there was a quarter plot vacant there, for the first time in 6 years.

"Until recently we've always had a waiting list of at least 12 people...The council did increase the rent but only one person left because of that so I don't really think the cost is a factor." Rent varies depending on the size of the plot, ranging from £40 to £90 per year. It is half price for people aged over 60. Ms Farruggia said weather played a part in people giving up allotments, especially when "disheartening" disease ruined harvests. But tending an allotment is also more difficult than expected..."Sometimes it's simply that people don't realise how hard it is - they think they might like to have an allotment but that it'll look after itself. "They can end up taking it on and then not coming back."

A while back I filmed myself working with an azada and before that with a mattock...

Working our allotment on the VJA from Simon Baddeley on Vimeo.

*** *** ***
In distant Ano Korakiana...a party for the Pantocrator, Του Παντοκρατόρου το πανηγύρι...

Η καρδιά του χωριού χθες το βράδυ χτυπούσε στον Άη-Γιώργη… Εκεί όπου επαναλήφθηκε με επιτυχία το πανηγύρι του «Παντοκρατόρου», από την εκείθεν Ενορία. Η μία πλευρά της αυλής γέμισε από ταπεζο-καθίσματα και κόσμο, ο ενδιάμεσος χώρος χρησιμοποιήθηκε ως πίστα χορού και ακριβώς απέναντι «στήθηκε» η ορχήστρα των «Φαιάκων», που κράτησε συντροφιά στους πανηγυρίζοντες έως μετά τα μεσάνυχτα. Αλλά και έξω από τον περιτειχισμένο περίβολο, δεν ήταν λίγος ο κόσμος. Εκεί εξάλλου είχαν στηθεί οι ψησταριές και το «ποτοπωλείο», δύο σημεία στα οποία σχηματίζονταν συνεχώς ουρές από κόσμο… Όπως αποτυπώνεται και στη φωτογραφία, οι διοργανωτές, παρά την κούραση ένοιωθαν ευχαριστημένοι από το αποτέλεσμα…

The wooden bridge to the garden behind the house has been repaired; a new back door fitted. Upstairs walls have been repaired and painted, sources of damp, given the wet weather this year and last, look to have been dealt with...

...though Lin detests the new windows, more Royston's choice than her spec. I'm relieved the old wooden frames, some rotting, all difficult to open, have been replaced. Apart from furnishing and carpeting, further work will be downstairs starting with the bathroom and stable-door porch and hall - a right mess. There's also as Royston points out a great need to allow the house to get more sun, so we'll go down again in a few days to use do some urgent estate work on the encroaching forest.

And in Handsworth we've been giving attention to another garden. Handsworth Helping Hands was asked by the householder to see what could be done to clear, tidy and improve a back garden and frontage in a Handsworth terrace off Rookery Road...

...in 4½ hours HHH cleared and swept a small frontage and removed a heap of tangled weeds and thick grass at the rear, but to slab or turf to give play-space, the soil needs digging over and levelling. We also tidied and swept an alley and removed cut green waste and rubbish entangled in the greenery...

Seeking Sir Henry in British Columbia

George Feaver, Canadian political scientist, born May 12, 1937 in Hamilton, Ontario, died on 12 May 2008 on his 71st birthday in Vancouver, British Columbia. In 1969 he published From Status to Contract: A Biography of Sir Henry Maine 1822-1888, London:Longmans.

George Feaver

I read Feaver's biography of my great great grandfather - far too cursorily - at the time it came out. It wasn't even my own book but a complimentary copy sent by George to my mother, Barbara or Theodora (to use Minoti's preferred name for her) after Grandpa Henry, Sir Henry's grandson, who'd died a year before publication, in 1968 had shared his sparse collection of Sir Henry's material with George.
I was aware Sir Henry James Sumner Maine was quite a well known ancestor, but his reputation and work passed me by. I got glimpses of others' opinions of his unique contribution to understanding the origins of law and the ancient traditions that underlay the government of rural communities - superlative but elusive opinions.

Jane Maine

At home we've an oil painting of his wife Jane, who on lived many years as his widow after his death in Cannes. In her childhood my mum knew Grannie Maine. I recall my tutor at Trinity Hall, Graham Storey, of which Maine was Master from 1877 until his death, apologising after the College had decided to remove a heavily varnished oil portrait from its dining room wall.
"It's not a good painting. In fact it's awful" he said.
I agreed, entirely unaffected. I recall reading later, in Feaver's biography, that Maine was an impatient sitter, not much interested in being portrayed.

Henry James Sumner Maine

It's only in the last year that my interest in Maine has quickened, not so much in his distinctions, his title and a plaque (see p.31 in link) in Westminster Abbey, which I never saw all the years I was at Westminster School, but in his writing and ideas and their significance during his life, and after his death. Again it was the interest and knowledge of others that spurred my present interest - especially their interest in the governance of village communities and the origins of law.
Having already begun to make adjustments to Maine's Wikipedia article - almost entirely lifted from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica - I was scanning the internet and came upon a publication by the young political scientist Karuna Mantena. She had just published Alibis of Empire: Henry Maine and the Ends of Liberal Imperialism (Princeton, 2010). I found her address on the faculty list at Yale, also on Facebook, and wrote to her. She replied almost by return:

Dear Simon Baddeley. Thank for very much for your kind and encouraging note. What a humbling and extraordinary thing to feel connected to Maine in this way! Please allow me to send you and/or your family a copy of the book. It has also appeared in a South Asia edition, which I can send since you may already have the UK/USA edition. If ever I can make a visit to Birmingham, I will be sure to be in touch. all my best, Karuna. Karuna Mantena, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Yale University

I replied with thanks and enthusiasm, hoping I'd said nothing tactless. I'd bought a copy of her book and was reading it. She wrote again:

Karuna Mantena

Dear Simon. It would be my pleasure to send a signed book for your mother. I do hope we can meet one day soon. And certainly if I make it up to the Highlands, I would so delighted to meet your mother. Yes, the book tracks a change from a more liberal-utilitarian moment of imperial civilizers to one more interested in cultural protection and integrity. Maine was at the cusp of that change, and incredible intelligent and perceptive in the debate (others in his camp were more strategically oriented). Indeed, he has had a long reputation in Indian as a friend and defender of Indian village communities. Gandhi was a great admirer of Maine's on this account. And since then a whole host of Indian legal historians have found Maine's work on the impact of English law in India to be especially illuminating. It is wonderful to hear from you, so there is nothing to apologize for. all my best, Karuna

Last September, I got another email - while we were in Corfu:

Dear Mr. Baddeley. A friend of mine, at the University of Hertfordshire  just successfully discovered your exchange with Karuna Mantena who had sent me her dissertation on Sir Henry Sumner Maine since I have written about him in my book on Common Lands and Customary Law: Institutional Change in North India Over the Past Two Centuries published by Oxford University Press, 1996. I knew George Feaver very well who as you know wrote Sir Henry's biography  ... and felt the lack of some of the known sources known to exist in the family's archives to which I had 'lost the trail' so to say. You cannot imagine my excitement, or perhaps you can for I have been living with the research on his papers since 1978. Is it possible for me to meet you sometime as I am in England right now and will be making a presentation at Hallam University on the 17th of this month? Best wishes and look forward to hearing from you. Prof. Minoti Chakravarty-Kaul

And so the view halloo. Since last September Minoti (one of her reviews) has visited my mother in Scotland - twice.

Minoti and Theodora

Her first visit was last September. George Feaver's book sits on the table in front of Minto and Mum. The second visit was earlier this month when I was staying at Brin Croft and Minoti stayed two nights with us there and talked to us both about Sir Henry. Before she left she wondered if I could approach the late George Feaver's family and possibly his university to see if by chance George's estate had any Maine material that might be shared. I quickly found and posted to a Facebook site commemorating Feaver asking if anyone could help and was almost immediately referred to his niece, Robin Peterson, who replied equally quickly to my email, saying she did have things of her uncle's that might interest me. She and her family live in Aldergrove, on the edge of Vancouver, under an hour from the Pacific, and a lot less from the US border hardly 10 miles to the south; about 4700 miles from Birmingham:

Hi Simon. I just received you message and would love to help. I have approx forty boxes to search thru. I know my Uncle had been collecting these books for years. I had tried to donate them to UBC, the University where he taught, but suffice to say they where more interested in me categorising the lot, than receiving it. I know these are quite valuable and want them to go to a good home, where they will be given their due respect. If you know of anyone who is a collector and interested in these, please let me know. Some are in disrepair and need a loving restoration, others are in good  to excellent condition for being over 130 years old.

Maine, Henry Sumner, Early History of Institutions, London, John Murray, Third edition 1880
Maine, Henry Sumner, Dissertations on Early Law and Custom, London, John Murray, 1883
Maine, Henry Sumner, Popular Government, London, John Murray 1885
Maine, Henry Sumner, Popular Government, London, John Murray, Third edition 1886
Maine, Henry Sumner, Village-communities in the East and West; six lectures delivered at Oxford, London, John Murray 1871 - 2 copies ( one in excellent condition )
Maine, Henry Sumner, Village-communities in the East and West; six lectures delivered at Oxford, London, John Murray Third edition 1876
Maine, Henry Sumner, The Whewell Lectures, International Law; a series of lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge, London John Murray, 1888

There may be more. I still have to go thru the boxes. I will try to find the information you wanted,  i.e. Uncle George's working papers, etc. Please let me know if there is anything else you are looking for, and by all means, please  forward this information to Dr.Minoti Chakravarti-Kaul. Cheers, Robin 

Last Friday we had a conversation on Skype - about 7.00am in the morning for me and around midnight for Robin and her family.

In the course of this conversation Robin told me that after his death George Feaver's home was cleared of most of his possession by his family - a perfectly normal process - but that forty boxes of papers, including the books listed above, had been left for disposal by auction. A friend of Robin's daughter (I think) who worked at the auctioneers sent a message to Robin about the sale. She dropped everything and dashed down to the auction, and rescued the boxes - selling at C$1 each - and has them stored in her garage. As we chatted - for over an hour - she showed me George's original bound dissertation on which his book on my great great grandfather had been based with illustrations not in the book, as well as first edition copies of Maine's books that had been in her uncles' library. On 25 June I got this email:

Hi Simon. The books are safely on their way to you Mum's place in Scotland! Darrell took them down to the Fed Ex office in Langley this afternoon. They were picked up for sorting and VIA (Vancouver International Airport), by 3:00PM PST. The tracking number is  **** **** ****, which you can track on the Fed Ex website. The clerk wrapped them with bubble wrap and commented - 'these look old'.  LOL. I feel so much better that they are going home...They should arrive in Inverness no later than July 1st., so your Mum can have a peak thru them before you get there.... I think you'll have fun looking thru these. I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed our conversation last night. I'll have to at least  get dressed for the next, lol.  Maybe a little more heads up before the camera starts rolling. Looking as glamorous as Olive from On the Buses takes time. Robin, Darrell, and Family 

*** *** ***
Yesterday afternoon I tried out my new azada on the plot and was delighted at its superiority over the fork and grubbing mattock when it came to clearing more of the untouched weed-riven soil, and I was joined by two spectators - Robin who I know and someone I often see on Victoria Jubilee Allotments - his name Tsitsan - but that's only the sound. I don't know the spelling.  He was curious about my azada and offered to have a go with it.  Verdict? I wish I'd discovered the azada when I started getting the plot ready for planting.

Who breaketh up, timely, his fallow or ley,
sets forward his husbandry many a way ~ Thomas Tusser 1524-80

The azada is a gem of a digging tool. Thanks to those gardeners who recommended I get one, and thanks to Simon at the web mail-order firm Getdigging for sending it so swiftly, and thanks to my friend Robin for another good argument  - about scientific creativity and strimmers.

Earlier I had taken my scythe over again and had a go at cutting the grass strips on either side of Scylla Parkyn's plot. She our Hon.Sec. I found that I could not cut the narrow strips as close as with the strimmer that making such a noise a few plots away. I reminded myself  I need to get better at sharpening my blade and choosing a time when the grass is wetter. All the same Scylla will now be able to use the allotment association's handmower on much shorter grass. I'll hone my scything skills.

Back to the future - a flattering email on 19 July from Simon at getdigging:

Hello Simon. Just a quick note to say I saw your piece on Youtube with your “new Azada” – I didn’t realise it was there until a customer said she had seen it. You look as though you were born with an Azada in your hand - and apparently not even out of breath when, after giving short shrift to a goodly area of sod, you casually strode off with the bell cap for a sip of water; very impressive! Almost as impressive was the deep philosophical discussion which you managed to have with your neighbour at the same time!  Anyway, many thanks for the kind mention; it’s always nice to have a helping hand – being a small one-man band my advertising budget of £5.00/year doesn’t stretch very far so every bit of publicity is always appreciated. All the best, Simon 

A ladybird on my specs

Martin and Annie Howard run a guest house - Tikli Bottom a Lutyens-style four bedroom Indian haveli - and a farm just south of Delhi down a lane just beyond the village of Tikli. We stayed there a few years ago when visiting Rajasthan. Over the last few years Martin and Annie have started a primary school on village common land. They come to England to stay with relatives and raise funds for the school.

Martin: ... those who wish to help the developing world to slow their growth rates, and those who wish to leave their grand-children a less over-populated and less fractious world, must focus on educating the poor.  This will enable us to enjoy the benefits of their affluence. BET (Bass Educational Trust) is doing this in its locality.  We have set out to give every child in the three villages where we live, an education similar to that which the politicians and bureaucrats insist upon for their children....

I had morning tea with John and Annie and talked ten to the dozen while they dutifully listened. I told them about Minoti Chakravarti-Kaul and her long involvement in making the case for the commons and her meeting with my mum and the role of Henry Maine in charting the sophisticated complexity of self-governing communities in east and west. Wouldn't it be good if living so close to Delhi they and Minoti might meet. They agreed and I said I would pass this thought on. Annie fed me chocolate cakes between cups of Earl Grey and I collected two jerkins they'd bought me from fabindia - with which they keep me annually supplied. I could try getting these over the internet but their site don't show the type I like. Collecting them is a pretext for seeing Martin and Annie when they're in London.

** **
The three pound hoe head I ordered - after seeing several people using such tools on the allotment - has arrived. Trouble has been finding a handle. It was "sorry sir you can't get them anymore" all over, until Lin found a gem of a site called Get-Digging based in Norfolk and in no time had identified what I'd bought as a type that comes in many forms in use across the world, often called an azada. I phoned them, spoke to Simon there, and using my debit card ensured a handle was on its way. I should have gone there in the first place. I'm an old man returned to school.

A farmer at work with an azada

I met three men on a plot near the site gate on Sunday - Joe, Mugabe, and Mahen - experienced gardeners working on behalf of a voluntary body - Family Care Direct - preparing a plot for people with learning disabilities. Mugabe gave me a banana. We talked about different kinds of garden tools and how to use them. Mugabe had a hoe like the one I've bought but he keeps its handle quite short - hardly 42". "It's easier to swiftly flick away weeds in the African sun" he said. The others are from Mauritius "Farming is in our blood" said Mahen. "My family left the land at the time of our Industrial Revolution. We've been city people for two hundred years" I thought of my grandmother tho' and her bottle deciding just before WW2 to start the small dairy farm at Mill End in Clavering where I was born in 1942.

Joe, Mugabe and Mahen on the VJA

My relationship with the countryside has been an urban one. I was born on a farm which I visited many times during my grandmother's life; spent many happy months at my great grandmother's home - a cottage near the river in Itchen Abbas; grew up moving between homes in London and a home in Bagnor near Newbury between water meadows and lynchets in Berkshire; went to prep school in Sussex near Handcross with a panorama to the South Downs and in the last forty years my mother has been our family's host in Strathnairn in the Highlands. But for pocket money earned helping with the harvest in my teens, all my living has come from the city. As well as living in London - Chelsea, Hamstead, Regents Park and visiting relatives in their London homes (my grandmother as well as her farm had a small place in Walton Street where I delighted in hearing the underground trains between Sloane Square and South Kensington) I went to my second school under Big Ben, Westminster Abbey my parish church for 5 years. I was proud to be a Londoner. Later after a sojourn in America I came back to work at university in Birmingham, a place whose name would once have curled my lip, but which is where I've made my life - a citizen of Handsworth, Soho and Lozells.

I have never made a living off the land. My uncalloused easily blistered hands are vulnerable to stinging nettles; the hands of an office worker; hands that in the days of Pol Pot would, on being inspected, have sent me to the killing fields.
** ** **
From Annie and Martin's home I cycled back to Victoria for a late lunch at Seafresh with Charles Webster of Delta to review progress on what we'd learned about Jack's films since we'd met just after Christmas. I've learned a great deal, in part through my own research and in part through the research and advice of the informal JH Committee.
** ** **
I left Victoria as the clouds lowered and the predicted rain began to spot making my way towards Euston to have supper with Ziggi at Pasta Plus on seedy Eversholt Street.  We caught up, not having seen each other since last July, soon swapping accounts of our allotments - hers in Haringey, and Lin's and mine in Handsworth. She being an experienced gardener might have made me envious describing an overflowing cornucopia of carefully timed harvests, but being a dear friend she could only fill me with joyful enthusiasm about what I might achieve. We waving our arms so much as we talked our waitress wondered whether we were Italian. I caught a late train north, half asleep, half awake, arriving in almost empty New Street just before midnight, cycling wearily home through light rain.
*** ***
Last Saturday around noon I went down to Black Patch Park for a meeting with our group and found many camper vans parked in line. It was the centenary of the founding of the park - a space laid out as a municipal leisure ground after Gypsies who'd regularly settled there were forcibly removed by police and bailiffs at the behest of the local authority.

Black Patch Park: Saturday 18 June 2011

Before going on to the sandwich lunch we'd arranged at the Soho Foundry Pub to give time to planning the celebration of the centenary that we'd had to postpone through lack of funds, I wheeled my bicycle over to one of the vans, children playing around, and introduced myself to Michelle and Bridget.
"I'm Simon, one of the Friends of the Black Patch....did you know this was Black Patch Park?"
"No we didn't" Irish brogue "We'd three places in mind. We came here last night"
"Did you know it was the hundredth anniversary of the Black Patch?"
"No"
"So you didn't know about the connection between this place and the Gypsies? Is it OK if I say Gypsies?"
"Sure. No. Who were they?"
"The Gypsies were forcible removed from here a hundred years ago to make it into a park"
"Oh right. Could we have some of it back do you think?"
"Not mine to  give. It's an idea"
"We'd look after the place"
"Do you know about Queen Henty and King Esau?"
"No. Who were they?"
"Their names are on the plaque over by the bridge and I added...

...Queen Henty's ghost is still haunting this park they say"
"My my my! That was what Robbie was on about. He seen a lady last night"
"Where?"
"Robbie, Robbie" The call was taken up between the vans - in a line below the trees beside the sunken brook that divides the park in two "Robbie! Robbie!" She looked around "He was going on about this lady he saw and I thought he was being daft."
After five minutes a trio of youngsters answered the call, one taller than the others, about thirteen years old with an elfin face. "
Robbie. Tell the gentleman what you saw last night"
"A lady" Pause.
"What was she like?" I asked, intrigued, a non-believer in ghosts, but thinking he sounded innocently truthful
"She had a big hat. She was wearing a cover on her face like the Muslim ladies wear"
"Yes?"
"She was looking up. She had white eyes. She was wearing green. Looking up."
"Where did you see her?"
He pointed towards the bridge over the river
"She moved" he said "She went from there" pointing to a place under the trees this side of the brook "to over the other side. She went through to there"
"Over the bridge? Were you scared?"
"Yes"
"How long did you see her?"
"Five minutes"
"Anyone else?"
"The other two with me"

Gypsies on the Black Patch ~ circa 1890 ~ before it was a park

I said I'd come back in the evening when I could get permission from Robbie's dad to make a film. I told the Friends at the pub who stopped complaining I was late for their meeting when I told them what I'd heard. They'd kept me some salad and sandwiches. Discussing the situation, we divided between Sue, our secretary, who took strong exception to the way she'd observed the Gypsies breaking into the park the previous evening, and Ron Collins, our Chair who, intrigued by my story of Robbie's "lady", was entertaining conciliatory moves, especially given the history. After lunch Ron and Phil Crumpton and I strolled over to chat with Bridget and Michelle. Sue said "Not me!" I understood both points of view.

Ron and Phil chatting to Michelle and Bridget, friends and children

I cycled over to the Black Patch again at 7.00pm and asked around for Michelle. I was invited into another camper. Michelle was nowhere around. Margaret and Barbara asked me to come in and have a cup of tea. By then I'd bought back Ted Rudge's book Brum Roamin' with lots of black and white photos of Gypsies on the Black Patch in the early 20th century, and newspaper stories reporting the Gypsies' eviction. I thought to myself if there was ever a chance of getting an undistorted account of what Robbie saw on Friday evening it was now diluted. We continued chatting as they looked through the book. I was offered a tasty plate of baked potatoes, broccoli and fried chicken with gravy. Later I tried phoning again but I couldn't arrange another visit to talk to Robbie. I don't believe in ghosts but I do believe people see things that can't be explained. It struck me that it was quite a coincidence these people should have arrived in the park on its 100th anniversary and one should tell me he'd seen "a lady". Much later I saw there'd been an exceptional number of hits on my photos on flickr of Black Patch Park

Queen Henty

From Bryn Phillips' Ballad of Black Patch Park:
You better think before you touch her park
You really don't want to break her heart
You'd better stop before you start
To develop Black Patch Park
The name of the Gypsy is Queen Henty
A well respected Romany
She still cherishes her memories
As her ghost walks Black Patch Park...

Dear Simon. Many, many thanks for the account of Saturday 18 June at Black Patch Park. I have made a copy and placed it among the collection of archive material we intend using when we get the go ahead from the Heritage Lottery Fund. What a shame the Friends of BP open day did not take place however our next one is on the 10 July may see you there. Kind Regards, Ted Rudge MA

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Tuesday evening I did two hours more digging on the plot - mattock work, bashing and levering and dragging; fighting the earth rather than working with it. Lifting stubborn clusters of yellow nettle roots clinging to the ground, chipping old bricks used by the previous gardeners on the Victoria Jubilee, clanging against hard fist-sized oval stones smoothed by the Paleogenic river that flowed across the Midlands millions of years ago, bits of plastic, glass, wire, pieces of cut wood, shapeless pieces of oxidising iron, chunks of mingled tar and gravel from a broken road, working up the good earth. sparing wild poppies at Lin's request.

Oscar watched and wandered around as I worked my way down almost to the shed foundation on one side of the plot. I can imagine being asked why I don't use the fork for this work. That's what my reading recommends when preparing ground. The trouble is that frequently I can't sink the fork into the ground. It gets blocked by stones or bricks. If I try to make the forking easier by using a small fork - again this is suggested in more than one of my books - it doesn't go deep enough to get under the weed root clusters. The grubbing mattock does, and even though it jars my wrist now and then, this ancient tool can cope with stones, has served us since Mesolithic times and will be around for long into our future.

Άλλο ένα σχετικό με το όργωμα εργαλείο ήταν η μάκελλα, η αξίνα δηλαδή για την κάλυψη των σπόρων, το άνοιγμα αρδευτικών αυλακιών, το σκάψιμο και το σκάλισμα των δέντρων. Η μάκελλα είχε τη μία λεπίδα πλατιά και την άλλη κάθετη με αιχμηρή απόληξη.

The trouble for me is that its blade weighs about six pounds, twice as much as the azada blade that I'm hoping to try out soon, and so tires me. After an hour with the mattock, μάκελλα, I need to rest after every seven or eight blows. Furthermore on this plot I hardly even need to use the axe end of the mattock, something that would be very useful if I were trying to grub out tree roots.

** ** ** **
Good news from the village: Having been anxious that work on restoring the old Band Room in Ano Korakiana, might, amid the crisis, be delayed indefinitely, it was good to read, on the village website, about a meeting in the present bandroom to discuss not only the renewal of work but details of the building's interior layout.

....Σήμερα το πρωί (Τετάρτη) επισκέφθηκε το χώρο του ανακατασκευαζόμενου παλαιού κτιρίου της Φιλαρμονικής μας, η Επιμελήτρια του παραρτήματος Κέρκυρας της Εθνικής Πινακοθήκης (Κάτω Κορακιάνα) Μαρίνα Παπασωτηρίου, δίδοντας χρήσιμες συμβουλές όσον αφορά στην οργάνωση των εσωτερικών χώρων του κτιρίου. Επίσης, το αμέσως προηγούμενο διάστημα ήταν γεμάτο από συναντήσεις και συζητήσεις για το ανακατασκευαζόμενο παλαιό κτίριο, οι εργασίες στο οποίο είχαν εδώ και 3 περίπου μήνες σταματήσει. Έτσι, σε επιτόπια σύσκεψη των αρμόδιων υπηρεσιακών παραγόντων και εκπροσώπων της Φιλαρμονικής την περασμένη Παρασκευή, έγινε μια ανακεφαλαίωση των εκκρεμοτήτων και έγινε γνωστό πως οι εργασίες ξεκινούν εκ νέου.