Rachael Munro-Fawcett

I’ve been here 37 years and I love my allotment. It reminds me of my childhood days back in Jamaica where I grew up on a farm. All of our family were farmers, my dad and my four uncles. We used to grow fields of crops and ship them to England. I went to Long Island in New York to farm for a while and after that I just leave and come to this country. I try and get my allotment and when I do, I am so happy. I love to grow every kind of vegetable. When I come down here, I feel good. I can do my work, get some peace and have a good laugh. I have a lot of friends here.

My sunflowers, I love them. That’s one thing we used to grow in the West Indies and so I come over here and I grow them. I don’t do anything special. I just put manure in the ground, stake them up and tell them to behave themselves. I talk to them and say, go straight up and don’t fall over!

In three months time I will be 86 and I’ll still be here on my allotment. That’s one thing I won’t give up, unless I’m really old and can’t do it anymore. But I have quite a long time left yet. I’m feeling well and this allotment helps keep me fit. I love it. I can’t complain at all. I’m still happy, I have a lot of vegetable.

Peter, plot 14T, 15T & 21

"Right lads get digging!”I can still hear her saying it now, me grandmother I mean. She was Chairwoman of the Halifax Gardeners Guild and started the Dig For Victory Campaign in Halifax during the Second World War. My brother and I used to go and do the digging for her at her allotment. Help her plant the potato’s and then dig them up. During the war, my grandmother got word of a miner in Barnsley, who didn’t do any digging, so off she went to go and see him. My brother and I didn’t know how she was going to get there as travelling was pretty well impossible during the war, so we thought we don’t have to do any more digging now she’s gone. But then my grandmother came back and told us to carry on digging, so I’ve dug ever since.

I’d have been 10 when all that started, so I’ve been gardening for 75 years. It’s just a natural thing to do as far as I’m concerned, grow plants and eat them. I’ve won about 6 trophies for my vegetables this year. Every year I win between 25-30 awards at the different shows I go to.

I’ve been here for 38 years anyway. When I first came it was more old men down here, now it’s a lot of young families. The old men said to me if you stay down here you’ll live to see 100. A lot of them nearly did. I get better exercise here than I do going to the gym. I spend about two hours digging everyday and I don’t mind it. I’m a digger, I always have been.

Peter, plot 13. 

I really like the idea of self-sufficiency, and although I know it’s not something I’d be able to achieve in practise, the idea of eating food that I’ve grown really appeals to me. So I took on an allotment because I want to be a bit more connected to the food I eat. One of my hobbies is wine making and I’d love to be able to make wine using fruit that I’ve grown myself.

The plot was vacant when I got it so it’s quite overgrown. I haven’t had it very long so I’m just clearing the brambles, glass and other things buried under here so I can restore it to its former glory and get it ready for growing season. I’m looking forward to it being finished so I can come and enjoy being outdoors and spend some time here thinking, unwinding and listening to podcasts.

Rik, plot 26TR 

I love the fact that you can create your own world here. Deciding on what you plant and how you plant it. And I love the community. I love that I’ve known people for years and years but don’t know much about their lives. Instead you’ll just talk about things like “how are your onions doing” or “oh my gosh look at your cabbages, how have you done that!” And I love the physicality of it and just being outside, having my own space.

It must have been the mid 80s when I first got the plot. You wouldn’t believe I’d had it all those years considering the mess its in. There were hardly any women here 40 years ago, it was mainly men. Now there are lots of women and families here.

I don’t know what I’d do without it to be honest, I really don’t. I can’t imagine what people do in their spare time if they don’t have an allotment. What makes me sad is when people who have had allotments pass on and can’t work their plots anymore, I find that so so sad.

So this place means everything to me really, I think most people say it’s a therapy. No matter how stressed I am, when I go through that little gate into the allotment, its like the weight of the world just lifts off my shoulders.

Jenny, plot 44T & 45 

My allotment is always here and I find that really comforting and reassuring in a world where people come and go out of your life and things are always changing. It’s a little piece of land that’s mine, where I can connect with the peaceful side of me and get some respite from the busyness and complexity of this modern world.

No one makes any demands upon me here and my conversations with others are not about demands, but simple practical conversations about plants and the like. I love that I have the opportunity toconnect with this community of allotment holders that so deeply appreciate what I appreciate, nature and growing.

When I find myself getting caught up in the world and getting anxious or down, the allotments gives me perspective on life and shows me how change is the natural order of things. It’s somewhere where I can just be without making any demands of myself or of others, or they of me, and that is so healing.

Jude, plot 43TL

What’s special about growing is my connection with this place. It sounds kind of cliché to say I love having my hands in the soil but I do. My grandfather had a farm and my father used to grow things during the war. I remember once being asked to go and buy something from the greengrocers and I’d never been before because my father just grew everything. Except carrots, he couldn’t grow carrots.

I want to grow things without insecticide and grow things that have beautiful colours. I love it when my family come so I can pick my leaves and serve them my vegetables from the allotment.

I love to grow fruit, flowers, beans, peas and other green things and sometimes I think I must stop, I have too much on my plate but the allotment just keeps drawing me back in. And the joy of coming here are the people. They are so generous and I love being part of this group, this community. People have so many ideas and I feel I am learning so much, I feel I’m just an infant. I’m always surprised, despite my lack of knowledge that things just grow. It’s wonderful.

Mary, plot 10BL3 & 10BL4

I was at a low point in my life when I first took on the plot here. I’d had to take early retirement because I had a lot of health problems, diabetes and all sorts of stuff because of an operation that had gone badly wrong. I was a charge nurse in mental health and I couldn’t do all the physical things anymore like, so I had to retire on ill health grounds. I was an outgoing person, I mean my job was to talk to people and to suddenly have all that disappear. I didn’t hit rock bottom, but I was pretty low.

When I took on the plot and got to know people here, it really gave me a focus and some structure back in my life. I felt myself moving back up again. I mean look at this place, it’s a special place to be. As soon as you come in it feels like you’re leaving something behind and coming into a space of wellbeing, a place of nurture.

There’s lot of memories I have here as well, like pushing my kids around in the wheelbarrow when they were little. It’s a major part of my life now and I still use it as a place to be when I don’t want to think about things, or a place to be when I need to think about things and work them out.

That’s why even though I’m moving away I won’t give the plot up. I’m going to keep coming back here, it will be more effort, but it’s the main focus in my life and is really very important to me.

Glenn, plot 6T 

I say allotment food nourishes you three times. Once when you grow it, again when you cook it and finally when you eat it. You go to great trouble to grow a cabbage. To feed it and protect it against cabbage root, flies, birds and butterflies. And at the end of it all you’ve got a little cabbage that you probably could not sell in the market for any price. You could buy a better one but yours will taste better because you’ve put all the effort into it.

I like being here, watching things grow and getting my hands in the soil. I like my kids to know where food comes from and now my grandchildren too.

So this place is about the food and our relationship to nature and our relation to the world that we live in. We forget that we are tied to the earth in a very fundamental way and its good to know, to feel it in your life.

Joe Foster, plot 30 & 31B

We couldn’t get a house with a garden so we got an allotment instead. It’s just at the end of our road and it’s lovely here because you’ve got the view over the whole valley.

The community vibe here is really nice and it’s really good to learn from people, although I can only grow runner beans. I’ve not had much success with anything else really and all my sweet corn got eaten by the squirrel’s. I want to make a tea garden next with all different herbs in, like mint and sage and that strange tasting rubbery herb.

It’sa lot harder work than I thought it would be. It’s been a hard year and so I need to go at it with a better plan next year. I just want it to be lovely and idyllic so I can put a little bench out and look out over the valley at the clock. Then I’ll make some tea and sit and crochet and knit. I’ll hopefully achieve that. But I’ve got a lot of weeding to do before then.

Abigail, plot 48BR