Allotments 4 All

General => News => Topic started by: GodfreyRob on May 09, 2008, 12:52:17

Title: Allotments - the new Rock n Roll
Post by: GodfreyRob on May 09, 2008, 12:52:17
Working Lunch today described allotment holding as the new Rock n Roll!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/working_lunch/7391868.stm

Looks like I am doing something cool after all these years!
Title: Re: Allotments - the new Rock n Roll
Post by: daileg on May 09, 2008, 12:57:40
allways thought id get there in the end lol
Title: Re: Allotments - the new Rock n Roll
Post by: OllieC on May 09, 2008, 13:00:48
I know what they mean. I played my last gig about a month before getting the allotment!

I have a it of an issue with "a movement that was designed to help the families of the labouring poor". I don't think class has any place in gardening, it transcends class/background... My family have had allotments for generations, and most of them have lived off inheritance!
Title: Re: Allotments - the new Rock n Roll
Post by: Robert_Brenchley on May 09, 2008, 20:11:25
Dunno about 'helping' the labouring poor. The situation was that vast numbers of people had been forced off the land, and had become landless agricultural labourers, or factory workers. It was cheaper to lease a plot of land cheap to a farm labourer than to pay him a living wage. Most of our allotment tradition evolved from that beginning, but there are still a very few sites descended from the urban gardens of old. Once towns began to grow in the 18th Century, people became cut off from the land, while at the same time more and more farmland was passing into private ownership. People just outside towns found they could make more money leasing small plots to the urban non-poor (a guinea a year was a great deal of money in 1730) than they could by farming it. But that was all a long time ago, and purely of historical interest. Our current situation is very different.
Title: Re: Allotments - the new Rock n Roll
Post by: saddad on May 09, 2008, 21:20:20
It can't be cool, I've been doing it for years!
;D
Title: Re: Allotments - the new Rock n Roll
Post by: Old bird on May 12, 2008, 12:54:38
Saddad

You have probably been cool all along - just didn't know it!!

It is - though - as you say - every body has at last realised the benefits that is why there are so many huge waiting lists!

It is nice to know, now, that people don't look at me as though i am "odd" anymore!!  (I still am - odd that is - but people don't necessarily notice!!)

Old Bird


;D
Title: Re: Allotments - the new Rock n Roll
Post by: Debenvalley on May 12, 2008, 13:17:17
I've been playing in bands since I was 17 and will be making some noise on Friday and Saturday night this week but I seem to be spending more time in the Greenhouse or down at the Allotment these days. I reckon it must be my age.... I'll be 35 next month  :(

I have one hobby for excitement and one for relaxation so I get the best of both and I wouldn't give either up   :)
Title: Re: Allotments - the new Rock n Roll
Post by: Rhubarb Thrasher on May 12, 2008, 13:22:50
I thought the allotment movement was set up to help wear out the lower orders so they couldn't get up to any mischief, the same way football clubs were started to discourage young working class males from having lewd thoughts

still with it all being trendy, it's nice that I can now tell people that I have a small allotment without fear of social embarassment
Title: Re: Allotments - the new Rock n Roll
Post by: Suzanne on May 21, 2008, 20:57:58
It must be cool. I first worked an allotment in my teens - lapsed for a few years and then rediscovered it. Its like flares, tie dye and long hair - it all eventually comes back into fashion!  8)

PS not that I remember flares or tie dye that is  ::)