Written by Janice North
“They’re encroaching!” – said the young man. Encroaching on what exactly? I replied. He could see I was upset. “Over there” he replied lamely, pointing at a driveway that leads to a few parking spaces. “We’ve been told to remove all weeds”. I explained they were not weeds but wild flowers. And very lovely too, with a beautiful colour and scent, especially in the evening on the way home from work.
The beautiful lilac pointed flowers had been cheering me up, they were always waiting to greet me on the corner no matter how late in the day. A neighbour told me last summer there had been many more but they had been uprooted by some busybody or other.
I was grateful for what was left. Now these were being chopped down and discarded at the height of their bloom … a bit like our country and economy I mused later.
It wasn’t the young gardener’s fault of course – he was just doing his job and he was very patient while I ranted and rescued some from the floor for a vase at home, making myself late for work. Surprisingly he was English – another thing I mused on later – are the British finally getting more jobs after Brexit? Who knows … I hope so!
For a long time now I have seen trees and greenery being chopped down and uprooted for mysterious reasons that make no sense. It ruins the view, someone complained, it wasn’t meant to be here, the council decided, we’re putting in smaller trees, it’s rotten, it’s just weeds … really?
And as for building on parks and our ever diminishing green belt – don’t get me started! 5G posts seem to be masquerading as our new trees perhaps … certainly my beautiful, peaceful local field needs constant defending … I need to ask the crows to do a better job perhaps, at driving people away …
The morning’s incident reminded me of the “Leaves on the line “ fiasco years ago. It wasn’t the fault of the disastrous train company at all, but of our beautiful trees instead, apparently. The English like trees too much and there are too many!, thus announced the French train company. It was our fault, you see. We should chop down all our trees so as to make it easier for a French train company to get rich and stop having tiresome English workers complaining about delayed and cancelled trains. Silly us!
Back then I wondered if France was being slabbed over and having ancient woodlands removed like England is. But I’m guessing – probably not!
I remember once saying that immigration had made me late for work – the overcrowding, broken tracks, signal failures, and summer long closures due to the building of Crossrail were all exacerbated and justified by the government by citing the amount of people travelling around. My reasoning did not go down well, even though it was said tongue in cheek (well, sort of …).
I despair. Every time I think, well, at least we still have this or that, it comes under threat. Or so it seems.
We must be ever vigilant to keep our country green, in the actual sense of the word. Right now it feels like we are losing the war, but we must fight every battle from the grassroots up (pun intended).
I’m sure eventually we may all have allocated a six inch patch of grass each – or perhaps to share on alternative days – to make us feel we still have access to the countryside. Unless you are part of the elite of course who will have everything gated off for their sole use. Rather like at the beginning of the last century when poor city dwellers were treated to a day in the countryside and the rich tried to ban them. That too took a mammoth fight to resolve, and a lot of protesting to stop workers being barred permanently from seeing the green countryside! The battles to walk freely continue even now.
The lockdown has only increased the sense of entitlement of the elite who have enjoyed not having plebs walking and driving around and reminding them of our existence, of us the workers who can be replaced instantly by foreigners or robots or both if we don’t comply!
Fight for every tree, every blade of grass, every flower and every scrap of greenery, comrades!
Or lose it all … faster than you think!
(Photos courtesy of Janice North)
The picture you show is of buddleia which is classified as an invasive species in the UK and a noxious weed in some countries.
It can be very damaging to buildings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddleja_davidii#Invasive_species
Butterflies like it.
Comes from China originally.
I saw something a year or three back. It was ‘gardening types’ up ladders opposite the houses of parliament. The pictures showed what the article was saying. Men were paid to snip off all the leaves towards the the season.
Cannot have all those nastybrown things making the place look untidy, can we.
Pictures showed before – leaf covered trees, during – the gang snipping, and after – on the green opposite the common house all clean and tidy leafless trees.
Think it was Guido Fawkes.
Janice, I may well have an article on the Web somewhere about access to the countryside. It’s a complicated matter, needing to balance the needs of leisure and property rights.
But I emnjyed truing to reopen Ermine Street where it runs through the Houses of Parliament.
JF