I did the first event around the South Parks book last week. It was at the Catalyst Club club in Brighton. Because that's a factual based (as opposed to fiction / short story) I ended up speaking mostly about the bits left out of the book.
The backdrop if you will of how parks developed in South London, how they are very much acts of political will and how also they can (and have) disappeared.With regard to the latter I cited the fact that had I lived where I do now around the time the house was built, or certainly maybe just a bit before it was built, I would have been in easy walking distance of the Flora Pleasure Gardens (now buried under the Coomber and Wyndham Estates in SE5). A bit further to the north was the Royal Surrey Zoological Gardens, where the first giraffes in the country were exhibited, and is now mostly covered by the Doddington, Pullens and Branden Estates in SE17. An eight stop jaunt on the 185 omnibus would've got me to the internationally renowned Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, a shadow of which exists on the current Spring Gardens.
In short parks come and go. In the course of writing the book a piece of wildflower (and al fresco gin suppers) paradise just off the Wandsworth Road that appeared on no maps was cleared and renamed Oasis Open Space. Ironically Wandsworth council seem to have looked it up since but it's a step towards recognition. Elsewhere though parks in London are threatened by greenwashing ventures (Elephant Park , nee Heygate Woods) or having large sections blocked off for festival use for weeks at a time (Brockwell). Whilst I would say London's open spaces are amongst the most improved things in my decades in this city they have been fought for, planned and protected by active citizenry. I will return to this theme in the future but for now leave with the old folk rhyme that came about when the old commons were being encroached upon by wealthy landowners.
The law condemns the man or woman that steals the goose from off of the common but leaves the greater villain loose who steals the common off of the goose.
Comentários