06/04/2021
Long term member at Rowley Fields Allotments
Reminiscences of (nearly) a half century at Rowley Fields
It appears that I am probably the longest serving member at Rowley Fields (I am unsure whether any privileges attach to that elevated position) and as such I have been asked to write a few words remembering my time on the plots.
I have plots 275 -278, close to the Foxcroft Close entrance. I took on my first plot in the early Spring of ’73 (or possibly ’74). I had a choice of plots as the society was then going through one of its barren spells. The attractions of the one that I took were that it had been cultivated relatively recently, it had a couple of mature apple trees – they are even more mature now, and it had a shed on it and was close to a water tank. The shed was interesting because the key for its lock was the same as the one that opened the gates – a mortice lock in those days. It appeared that a previous occupant had been a locksmith and made a lock to fit the key – a reversal of the usual situation, to save having to have two separate keys. I was very new to gardening in those days and didn’t then appreciate that parts of the plot also came with a copious supply of mare’s tail. I am still trying to get rid of it! Over the years I have taken on plots adjacent to mine as they became vacant and now have four – almost 1,000 square yards.
Within a year or eighteen months of taking on the first plot the BBC sitcom, The Good Life, started on the TV and overnight every vacant plot was taken by people inspired by the exploits of Tom and Barbara Good. Unfortunately, most of these newcomers packed it in within the first year or so having come to realise that allotment gardening entails more work than was perhaps depicted on the small screen.
At the time of taking on the first plot I lived in the Imperial Avenue area but early in 1975 I moved to Glenfield. I did look into the possibility of getting a plot there but the only ones available were very restrictive – no sheds allowed, no running water etc and also the Glenfield soil is a very heavy clay in stark contrast to that at Rowley Fields where we have a very well-drained soil (for the most part) on what at one time was probably the banks of the River Soar. At that time, I was just finishing some part-time study at what was then the Poly, now DMU, so thought I would have some time on my hands hence taking on the plot. I had almost zero previous experience even though my father had had an allotment near our home in Bridgnorth, Shropshire and had a fair-sized back garden where he grew chrysanthemums. The only things that I can remember growing myself were some lettuces. I had purchased the pack of seeds for a couple of (old) pence, grown several dozen lettuces and then sold them at several pence each to neighbours – a budding entrepreneur even then! Other than that my gardening was limited to digging up worms for fishing bait. My father was very amused when I took on the allotment.
My plots back on to the Great Central walkway. It had not long been a walkway in those days and most of my neighbours on adjacent plots could remember when trains chuffed up and down the line – apparently, they could tell the time by knowing which train was passing. The fence in those days was just a wooden post and rail affair and you could chat to the people walking along the path. From my plot I could look across Aylestone Meadows and see the river, especially in the winter when it flooded across the fields. On the far bank of the river was another meadow but early on that became a landfill site which I watched growing every week. It is now quite a substantial ridge with mature trees on it. However, the trees and brambles bordering the walkway have now grown to the extent that one can see very little of the fields on the other side.
In my early years on the site, the allotment society operated a split site. As well as the current site there was another site on the other side of the railway line. This had about a hundred plots. However, after a while it was decided to close this site down and some of the members migrated across to the main site.
Of course, over the years I have seen many people come and go on the plots near mine. When I started the plots behind me were gardened by ‘Burma’ Jack (he had served there during WWII) and Eric. Eric had a greenhouse, home-made from old window frames of various shapes and sizes – rather like a glazed version of a Hobbit house. He grew tomatoes and Chrysanthemums very successfully. Jack sometimes used to do his digging in the evenings and he had fashioned a headband that held a torch so that he could see to dig in the dark. Both of them were very kind to me and gave me much advice, plants, cuttings etc. My current rhubarb plant is a crown that Jack gave me. I remember thinking of them as very old but in fact they must then have been 10-15 years younger than I am now!
Another plot neighbour for a few years was Van Hopkins who was a radio commentator for rugby matches. Perhaps the most memorable of my neighbours was John. He was a retired police inspector (very much the old-school type of policeman – no psychological profiling and so on for him) and had multiple plots. He had a half dozen or so plots at Rowley Fields and another ten or a dozen at Kirby Muxloe. He grew crops on a semi-commercial basis, selling them to greengrocers and florists in the area. He had one plot near mine which was entirely planted with daffodils – very pretty at Easter time. In the winter he would trap the pheasants which were then quite prolific on the site. He would make a wire netting cage with a sort of lobster pot style of entrance to it. The pheasants would find their way in, attracted by the corn with which he baited the trap but then couldn’t find their way out. He would catch a dozen or so every winter. These were also sold on. I have never seen anyone dig like him. I once arrived at about 08.30 and found him digging a derelict plot he had just taken on. He told me that he had started at 03.30 and by late morning the whole plot had been dug over. He was then in his mid-seventies. Sadly, he dropped dead with a heart attack a few years after he had arrived on the site.
My longest lasting neighbour was ‘Sam’ Samuels. Sam came from Antigua and had arrived in the UK in the late 50’s or early 60’s making his way to Leicester where he became a bus driver. He would regale me with tales of life in Antigua before he had made his way across the Atlantic. Sam was a land baron like me and had half a dozen plots. One batch of his plots were heavily shielded by some Leylandii trees at the bottom of one of the gardens that backed on to the allotment roadway. Sam had got the permission of the houseowner to take the tops off the trees (I think the houseowner had had a quote for having them felled and was shocked at the size of the quote). Sam knew that I had a chainsaw and promised me that I could have the ensuing logs – what could go wrong?
I was about 15 feet up on the ladder cutting off a sizeable side branch and, as I severed it and it started falling, the far end of it caught on an adjacent tree and the cut end swung back and knocked me off the ladder. As I fell my back struck one of the stumps of a lower branch that I had cut off and I landed on my back on the roadway. It took me a minute or two to gather my senses. I could see that one of my feet was at an unusual angle to the leg and when I did eventually get to my feet it was obvious that all was not well and Sam agreed to take me to the LRI. Sam dropped me off at the A&E entrance and within 30 seconds of being booked in I was in the Serious Incident unit. I had a variety of X rays and scans: as well as finding a selection of gashes and a damaged tendon on the ankle it was eventually determined that I had broken a number of ribs (somewhere between 3 & 7) and punctured a lung. A drain was inserted in my chest and I was sent in an ambulance to the Glenfield hospital. One of the nurses who was dealing with me commented that ‘I smelled very nice’ – not a compliment I am used to receiving. This was because I was liberally infused with Leylandii needles and resin. Because I was admitted to the Glenfield hospital as an emergency, rather than for a pre-planned operation, I was placed in a private room rather than on a ward as they had been unable to pre-test me for Strep. Infection, which made my three day stay there more pleasant than it might have been.
Over the years I have seen a lot of wildlife on the plots. Pheasants I have already mentioned though there seem to be fewer of these now, rabbits used to be very numerous with a sighting almost every time I went to the plot but Myxamatosis seems to have greatly reduced their numbers. In my early years we used to have a couple of chaps with a terrier type of dog and ferret who would come round and trap the rabbits – it never seemed to make any difference to their numbers. In recent years badgers have become much more common and I now have an annual battle as to who is going to get the sweet corn – me or the badger. So far, the badger is winning hands (or should that be paws?) down. Foxes are another regular sighting. I had an unfortunate encounter with a fox one summer evening. I was walking down one of the paths on my plot and trod on something soft. This turned out to be a fox which had been dead for some time and was just fur and bone. As I had a bonfire going, I decided that cremation was the best way of getting rid of the co**se. Big mistake! The smell was horrendous and as it was a calm summer evening it lingered. I have seen grass snakes a couple of times. Once I had just arrived on the plot one morning and had some vegetable peelings to go on the compost heap. As I took the carpet cover off the top there was a grass snake looking at me – I am not sure which of us was more startled. On another occasion I was digging at the bottom of the plot, adjacent to some long grass and I remember thinking that I couldn’t recall leaving a piece of hosepipe in the grass. Then the ‘hosepipe’ blinked at me. Recently I have seen a green parakeet flying close to my plot.
I started off by growing mainly vegetables and I still do grow a wide range of those but about 20 years ago I also started growing flowers for cutting and now we have flowers in the house from late February to November. I have daffodils, Irises and Tulips, then Sweet Williams, Calendula, Cornflowers, Crocosmia, Gypsophila, Gladioli, Sunflowers, Rudbeckias and Chrysanthemums. Vegetable growing has changed somewhat over the years. About 15-20 years ago we started to see potato blight becoming more prevalent and this is now quite a problem. Carrot fly has also become more of a problem – I now cover mine from May onwards with a cloche style arrangement of water pipe hoops covered with insect netting. This has been very successful and this year I have had a huge crop of carrots with very little fly damage.
Weather has always been a factor of course. I can remember going to the plot on the morning of June 2nd 1976 and as I watched all of my bean and potato plants were going black and keeling over after being caught by the sharp frost which had set in that night. My plots slope down towards the railway line and the cold air had rolled down the slope and most heavily damaged the crops at the bottom of the plot. That summer was of course the drought year and much watering needed to be done to keep any crops surviving. Latterly I have been growing pumpkins and find it very satisfying to grow something that size.
This past year has perhaps been the most remarkable of all the years that I have been on the plots. Lockdown meant that I had more time on my hands as many of the other activities that I would normally undertake were not available. As a consequence, I have been on the plots almost every day and they are now in better shape than ever before. I just hope that I can keep them that way when we come out of the present situation and I resume my other activities.
I hope that the above will be of interest to some of you and please feel free to stop for a chat if you are down at my end of the allotments.
Clive Groves
December 2020
