London Open House 2018

This year I signed up to volunteer only on Saturday afternoon, and planned the next day to go and visit buildings at Greenwich. The day dawned - somewhat - it was pouring with rain and I hoped that I would be able to keep warm whilst on duty. I headed off on the train for Piccadilly - Burlington House - the Linnaean Society. By the time I volunteered this was one of the only society/institute buildings that still required volunteers, even though I volunteered early. Never mind. It was easy to find as it is in the forecourt of the Royal Academy, where I am always darkening the doorways with my curiosity and thirst for culture, and I know the toilets well too. 

After finding the place where I would be standing, giving out information sheets, I went to see if the Faraday Museum was open. This museum is housed in the Royal Institution which is in a nearby street - Albemarle Street - and is the most fantastic Regency building. It is a huge frontage for a small street. I thought this building might be open to the public for Open House, but no, there was an event on, and I asked about the Faraday Museum but it is open only during the week.  So I intend to do that another time.

Which Institute do you think this is?

That's the Royal Society of Chemistry. I thought they seemed open and accessible. 

What about this one?

Yes! It is the Geological Society. They have two lecture theatres, and a fine library.

This is why I like Open House, I had never heard of Smith before, and his excellent map.

Mary Anning, the fossil hunter of Lyme Regis. 

I hadn't heard much about the Linnaean Society, except that Darwin lectured on Origin of the Species there, and not in the current building either. It is named for Carl Linnaeus the Swedish naturalist, and contains his collection and all his papers, which seem to be kept in a frozen vault in the basement, in case London suffers a huge disaster. But if you go to their website - this is a link you can see that all their treasures are online, including the diaries of Alfred Russel Wallace, and many other interesting items, and they also put on lectures for the public on all manner of botanical and zoological topics. They have a small part of Burlington House. I enjoyed being with my fellow volunteer and giving out information sheets to all the interesting people - posh, Japanese, very married and quite a few gay, who wanted to see the building. It was a good afternoon and our three hours passed quickly in conversation and in informing people about the other parts of the building open to the public. Loved it.

Allotments - sale of land

Our allotments are not owned by the Council, but by the W... Land Charity. That is, they own the allotments and originally they aimed,  Point 1. to rent them out to "poor cottagers, day labourers and journeymen, for the purpose of field garden allotments in plots of not more than one acre each. Point 2, the income after payment of expenses shall be applied for the benefit of the deserving poor. "

Now the aims of the charity have been updated. Aims and Activities: 1. Makes grants to those in need, hardship of distress and resident in W..... 2. Provides allotments for use by residents of W..... and the surrounding area.

The Charity Trustees find plenty of poverty to alleviate in the ward, or parish. Just because the price of property is high doesn't mean there is no poverty, unemployment, or poorer areas. There are even some homeless in Weybridge - (Ivan keeps an eye on the situation and says there are eleven homeless, but its hard to monitor them - they move around.)  The Charity gives money for mattresses and carpets where there is need - only about £100 at a time. The Trustees feel embarrassed that there is so much need and their gifts are so small.

My Bramleys - didn't get many in the end 

Meanwhile the Allotments are centrally located behind the recreation ground, next to the church. The land is flat and open - except for small areas of fruit trees. The Clerk to the Trustees, Howard T, says we should not be growing fruit, but vegetables. He would specify potatoes and cabbage I expect. 

I wrote before about the committee. Here it is. Our job is to collect the rents and keep track of the membership list, and to make sure there is water in the tanks and mown paths and general maintenance is done. Also that bonfires are only done in the "off" season. There are many many plots and the turnover is high (10% a year) because people often find to do well with an allotment they need to invest more time than they really have. We do tell new people to start with a small one (we have quarter plots as well as 1/3 plots and half plots) so they don't bite off too much but !! it happens all the time. People grow old, they find they cannot bend, they get tired easily. We don't have a waiting list and we never have 100% occupancy.

Marie does the Plot Steward job as well as Chairs the Committee, and this is really too much as she is the sole connection most people have with the allotments; they don't know any of the other Committee members. Apart from Busy Dee, who runs the shop, and Mike, who keeps the money, and me, who takes the minutes, the Committee members have no job - they just say no to Marie's ideas, because they see trouble around every corner. They just want to make no personal effort.

Marie, as Chair of the Committee, is ALSO A TRUSTEE. This is very bad because when Graham and Howard voted to sell some of the allotment land I think  SHE VOTED TO SELL THE LAND TOO. She told us some time ago that when she is showing plots to new people she doesn't show them those in the triangle because "I think the Trustees wanna sell it."

 I am against selling the land. I think there is no more valuable resource for people who suffer from stress, or depression, or addictions or those who are under employed. What can you do that is more real than growing food? Also the part of the land that is being sold is beautiful. The neighbouring residents are, of course, up in arms but they have no grounds for opposition to the planning permission that is being requested. All neighbours always oppose development, even of quite tiny changes, and they have no grounds and the thing goes through.

The Committee, on reading Graham's email outlining the proposal to sell the land, did nothing at all. Didn't write to the Trustees to appeal to them to reconsider, didn't have a meeting, didn't call the members in an extra General meeting. Nothing. When we finally did meet the men on the committee, and one older lady, said that there was no point in opposing because planning always goes through in W_____ and we have no grounds to oppose. I said (I was the only one) we should oppose because members are being thrown off their plots, and the land is a lovely area. They all stared at me and said ON WHAT GROUNDS?  and I didn't know on what grounds, but of course I could have looked into it. The allotments are a civic aminity like the recreation ground, and shouldn't be sold without a lot of bally-hoo and some assurances that the rest of the ground will be preserved. The Trustees are giving assurances but of course they mean nothing at all.

A group of plot-holders who are either neighbours or have plots in the land that is to be sold got themselves together and called a Special General Meeting of all members, but the purpose of the Meeting as they gave it was very, very vague: numerous headings about the ways in which the Committee needs help.

So the Committee has called a Special General Meeting and the motion is:

The Committee of W_____ Allotment Holders’ and Gardeners’ Association shall arrange for a ballot of all members to decide whether the Committee should formally oppose the proposed planning application concerning the allotment land called “the Triangle” (allotments 78 – 85A)

As secretary, I was responsible for putting up these notices. That is, the meeting is about balloting the members. Why doesn''t the Committee do that right away? Because it will cost some time and effort and at the meetings there is a lot of bleating about what a nuisance it all is. None of the Committee always turns up except the Chairman, me and one other. 

The Requisitioning Group is a gentle group but they are very angry about the subject of the meeting. To them it's a meeting to vote about having a vote, and that's true, but the fact is, the Committee would have put out whatever was motions were passed at the meeting for the general membership to vote on anyway. This way our procedure is made clear. 

Another complaint: they say the Committee has taken over their meeting. This is in spite of the fact I explained they could have a meeting to discuss whatever they wanted but it wouldn't be a WAHGA meeting unless the Committee called it, and we couldn't just give out the address list. Neither would I call it for them, as it were, on the side. 

It is very interesting. My loyalties are torn, my heart is with the RG. The land shouldn't be sold because it's a civic amenity and gardening land is getting scarcer all the time. Maybe I am very unkind about the poor? Heartless and selfish? As a committee we could do more to help the poor do gardening, e.g. give them cast off tools and free seeds, if that's what they need. The allotments should welcome the hard-up and the Trustees should see their value in that context. They see the land now merely as an investment.

Alan Bennett - Untold Stories

I have read this book before but I think I skipped the diaries as they made me feel so cast down. There is a downbeat note to them. A dying fall. I love his writing in that it's well structured and elegant, I seem to agree with his sentiments quite consistently, but the way he writes is not cheering. I feel as though my head has been buried in a vat of mud. He is brave though, in that he confronts, amongst other things, the awfulness of our old people's homes. His latest play is set in such a home and I think I should go and see it. Perhaps he has changed his mind about such places.

Untold Stories begins with an account of Bennett's mother's mental illness - delusions caused by depression. I suppose such a frank account is rare. My daughter is about to spend a year studying psychiatric illness and medicine and it is on the reading list supplied by the medical school. I think it will also help her to understand what kind of mindset older people may have: that is: they may not have travelled much, have very modest aspirations, be very suspicious of new and foreign things, and yet make a big deal of themselves, express strong pride in their family, their hometown, the people they know.