Trewsbury Road Allotments

I’ve been on this site on two separate occasions, one lasting 16 years. 2008 to 2024.

PLOT 52 – The First 16 Years

I remember this site fondly. Every weekend you could see the majority of people tending to their allotments. Bums in the air, strimmers humming and the sounds of kettles boiling in sheds. From Spring to Autumn it was a hive of activity as the above video shows. Winter would be the only time of year when only the hardy plot holders would arrive and spend most of our time drinking tea in the communal shed.

This is where I met Rusty, a ginger kitten who would suddenly appear and watch me tending the plot. After a while he’s get involved with digging and relaxing in the shed for an afternoon nap. I even installed a cat flap in the shed and would often find him sleeping in there when I arrived just after dawn. He did have his own house, in fact directly behind my allotment but I think it was a busy house so he used my allotment and shed to find a few hours of peace and quiet.

During the last few years I had what can only be described as a mental breakdown due to the internal politics and malicious stirrings of people who I thought were my friends but with two faces. I informed the council I was leaving, sold the greenhouse/shed and donated the raised beds to a local charity. I just had to get away from the place for my own sanity. I lived next door to the allotment site so Rusty still visited me but this time at my own home, and occasionally stayed overnight.

November 2018 and feeling it had been a mistake to leave this site, I put my name back on the waiting list for this site.

October 2022 and I receive a telephone call from the Allotment Officer at the local council authority informing me that a half-plot had become available. The twist in the tale was that it was half of my original plot. The allotment site committee had been so slow in issuing plots to new tenants that my original plot had been left fallow for the years since I left. I accepted and paid my £30.57 for the year.

So here I was four years after leaving, back on my old site, or at least half of it. The problem people of the past were still on site but my now I had developed a better insight on who were the trouble makers so just ignore them. Its sad really because the site was once just a wonderful place of chatter and friendliness, just goes to show how one or two bad apples can upset the whole cart.

The first visitor to great meet on my return was Rusty, like myself a little bit older and slower in movement. I would remain on this plot until I left London for Wales at the start of 2024. On my final visit to the site I sat with Rusty and we cuddled in the shed for a few hours, it was Winter so nice and cosy in the little shed. I thanked him for his friendship but explained why I had to leave London. We feel asleep for a good few hours, the next day I left London. A week later and I received news that Rusty had falled asleep at exactly the same spot where he was born in his house and quietly died.