Page 42 - ALG Issue 2 2021

Yorkshire
Yorkshire and parts of Humberside
REPRESENTATIVE
Mike Farrell
Based in Rotherham 07802 196 688 mfarrell.nas@gmail.com
MENTOR
Tony Urwin
Yorkshire & Humberside 0845 250 1292 turwin.nas@gmail.com
Calls to 0845 numbers cost 3p (ex VAT) per minute plus your telephone company’s access charge.
42 Allotment and Leisure Gardener
Welcome to our new members...
Gladstone Street Allotment
North Duffield Allotment Association
11 Individuals 1 Landowner
On the brink to ice rink: a winter of discontent
Yorkshire Ramblings
(via Rotherham)
The Yorkshire branch of NAS held the Annual General Meeting on Zoom. It was hosted by
Liz Bunting from HQ and was well attended. Unfortunately, our chairman Barry's steam- powered computer was not firing on all cylinders, so I stood in to chair the meeting. Our new secretary Kay couldn't get out of the cyber shadows and was ably deputised by Phil Gomersall. So apart from what went wrong, it all went quite well.
As announced at the Yorkshire AGM, we are launching a forum for allotment site officers
to discuss matters relative to managing an allotment site. For example, new site secretaries can post questions and secretaries who have dealt with similar questions and situations, can give advice. The address is https://nasyorkshire. org.uk/forum and the password can be found
in the members area of the National Allotment Society website. The forum is a result of herculean efforts by Kevin, a good friend of Yorkshire allotments.
Rotherham allotment
gardeners lead the way
At the AGM of the National Allotment Society Yorkshire area, new awards to recognise the work done for the benefit of allotments in the Yorkshire and Humberside region by individuals were presented and all four recipients were from Rotherham. John Callaghan (Hartley Lane), John Kirk (Maltby), Al Dean (Broom) and Stewart Manyweathers (Westfield) collectively have spent 100 years in the promotion and preservation of allotments. The awards were presented by Phil Gomersall BEM, National Allotment Society President.
Although it may turn out to be premature, as I write this it looks like Covid19 is on the retreat and I'm sure it won't be long before we can get out of the neighbourhood and visit gardens and flower shows.
Mike Farrell, Yorkshire Region Representative
Records show that the allotments in Apperley Bridge Bradford will be at least 100 years old next year. A nice little community of residents has grown around it in that time. They had been
in the possession of a single family
for 98 of those years; the family long since moved away but it was still a surprise when suddenly out of the blue the allotments were put up for sale by auction! A panic amongst neighbours and plotholders alike rippled around the fringes of the allotment land. Developers were interested in buying
it up, to do what they do. Our little idyll nestled in among old Weaver’s cottages was on the brink of unwanted change and we feared the allotments would be lost forever.
Some of the neighbours decided to club together and after much angst and fretful negotiation with the sellers’ side, a deal was done ahead of the auction. We’d beaten the developers and the allotments were saved. Hurray.
Next came the floods. The heavy rains in recent weeks overwhelmed the drains in our valley. We are located between the canal and the river, so we expect a bit of wet, but not the stuff that is usually flushed down the loo! Whilst assessing the flooding, temperatures dropped below zero and we had ourselves an ice-rink. Cue the Bolero. Yorkshire Water are a nimble dancing partner and although the frozen scene was rather pretty, we knew what was really in it. We are all thawed out now and the waters have subsided but we have some way to go before we can say we’ve made glorious summer. We remain optimistic that we’ll get back
to normal and of course we have our 100 years birthday to build towards next year. Wish us luck.
Adam Brydon-Bliss