York Avenue

Jarrow, until York Avenue was built celebrating the lauch of HMS York in 1936, ended at Bede Burn Road. After dereliction in the 1980's Valley View Park is as idylic nearly as it was when tennis was played over from the Bede Gallery, across Butcher's Bridge Road. The old lake is still shown on land use maps. The burn rises in the foothills towards White Mare Pool. Valley View was most sublime in 1964 and 1974.

Water, energy and food. Food, clothes and shelter. Workhouse, Soup Kitchen and Bicycle Factory. The constant of Sea Level around The UK over 6000 years. Existing and surviving within a very very small diurnal and anual temperature range. This thought sparked in my mind the first day of spring 1995 running down Frankfurter Allee, East Berlin eastwards.

On a more earthly note the British Government Chief Scientist has realised We Are Doomed and England will have to Grow Its Own Food like in World War Two.

Collective Allotments are the best where selfishness is purged and already in Bovey Tracey, Devon a English Heritage/National Trust derelict garden is being revived.

This time because of Ruth in The Archers being from Northumberland Geordies can work in the Posh Gardens too. What a rural idyl this Dartmoor Garden. It will have derelict walls with pointless romantic gates and stuccoed capped walls with ivy.

The main tasks are rescue the orchard with a cythe. Pick and store the apples and blackberries.

The thorn bushes grow in the absence of cultivation, encroaching on the small enclosure within a year. The barbs are surprisingly pernicious, lets say, for such a mild country. Their design is to rip in both directions and one needs a machete. A helicopter would be handy, what with all these people and you could land on a lawn in the Mendips.

The bindweeds grow so fast you can see them crossing the allotments like Trifids.