Page 39 - ALG Issue 4 2018

Scottish
Allotments
and Gardens
Society
Centennial
Gathering,
16th June
2018
The story of the Scottish Allotments and Gardens Society (SAGS) begins on 15th December 1917 when the National Union of Allotment Holders (NUAH) was founded.
The sudden expansion in the provision of allotments to try to overcome wartime
rather than a Conference.
During the preceding year SAGS members
had worked on two booklets. A historical one, Growing Support, uses archival material to tell the story of allotment growing in Scotland during the past 100 years. It is
beautifully illustrated with photographs from 1915 onwards. The other booklet covered the topic, governance on allotment sites, which is totally up to date with the modern
proliferation of devolved management across allotment sites in Scottish local authority areas. The Gathering seemed like the ideal opportunity for the
sourced from the SAGS committee.
A large part of the morning session was
devoted to an exploration of growing during WWI. George Gilchrist and Ray Collins, of Scottish Rural College Oatland Campus have guided students in developing an allotment plot using varieties and techniques from that period. Ray gave a fascinating talk about the creation of the plot and of their travels ‘with the plot’ about the UK, including a visit to the Westminster Parliament.
After lunch, and an opportunity to network, the emphasis turned to modern times. Speakers dealt with, among others, issues of food security from the Royal Botanic Gardens of Edinburgh, studying nutritionally depleted soils from the GROW project based in Dundee University and
using Grow Your Own to overcome the difficulty for people
in institutions to access wholesome fresh food from the Food for Life Better Care Programme.
All the speakers had
excellent ideas about the different ways in which allotment plotholders could contribute to the campaign to overcome the problems, improve soils and enable everyone to access high quality fresh food.
This account would not be complete without giving thanks to the people who manned stands at the Gathering. We
were introduced to new products, such
as the peat-free wool and bracken-based composts from Dalefoot Farm and the cider made from Scottish apple varieties by John Hancox of Scottish Fruit Trees. They also provided a relaxed opportunity to ask more questions about the historical and modern topics of the Gathering.
Barbara De La Rue Committee member of SAGS
food shortages
led to the need for
an organisation to
represent the interests
of plotholders.
After the war the
Union continued to
campaign for the
provision of space
for ordinary people to ‘Grow Their Own’. In 1932 NUAH set up the Scottish Allotments Scheme for the Unemployed to help victims of the depression to grow their own food.
In 1946, after WWII, it combined with
the Government and Scottish Allotments Committee to form SAGS, which continues to campaign and flourish as vigorously
as ever. It seemed that the annual SAGS conference in June 2018 was a good opportunity to devote time to taking a good look at how Scottish allotment issues and practices have developed over the past 100 years. To emphasise the changed format, the ‘get together’ was called a Gathering,
A large part of the morning session was devoted
to an exploration of growing during WWI
writers to launch
these booklets into
the world. Growing
Support was launched
by Dr Hannah
Connelly as the first
event of the morning
session, while Good
Governance was launched by Dr Deborah Burns at the start of the afternoon session. For those interested these booklets can be
After lunch, and an opportunity to network, the emphasis turned to modern times
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