In our recent session, we had a wonderful conversation about the vital role of nature and green spaces in our lives. We discussed how the sense of safety that birdsong brings, the calming effect of fractals on our minds, and the beauty of petrichor—the smell of the ground after rain—are all crucial to our well-being.
We also touched on how we often seek these green spaces as we would a lake or a well when the green inside us feels dried up, quenching our thirst for nature. Our talk highlighted the significance of urban design and how living in the city heightens our craving for green spaces. (We love that where we live is so green and lush, even though it’s right by the city!)
A particularly beautiful share came from Jean Byrne, who started off the session by talking about her thoughts on this theme as well as her experience leading a walking for health group. Jean, along with other volunteers, has been part of this group for 20 years, embodying the spirit of community and connection that green spaces foster. You can find more about joining their walks from the Longford and Firswood Strollers web site.
In the following posts, you’ll find personal stories and poetry about how these green spaces enrich our lives. We hope these reflections inspire you to appreciate and protect these vital areas.
Jean Byrne
We went to the park every day in lockdown from the time that we were allowed one hour exercise a day. In December 2020 the Longford Community Choir met face to face for the first time since the covid pandemic started. We had been meeting on zoom but for Christmas Janice who runs the Choir decided to do a socially distanced carol concert at the Community Christmas tree in the park. It was at a time when people were not allowed to sing indoors. One of the organisers of Bekah (in red tinsel in the middle of the photo) marked up 2 metre squares around the tree and we all stood or sat in these singing carols for anyone who passed. I was taking no chances and wore a visor as well as reindeer ears. It all looks a bit strange now but it is a reminder of how we lived then.
I started this poem during lockdown about some of the groups/people in Longford Park. I have added a few bits since then
Longford Park
All life is here in this place I hold so dear
There’s tottering toddlers, roller-skate wobblers and walking stick dodderers
Our lockdown salvation and a free nature-filled oasis for the local population.
We’ve got Friends of the Park and bats that swoop low when it gets dark
Bungalow café, fresh baked bread and cheery staff
Pram active babies in strollers and Veteran Crown Green Bowlers
Baby sling hirers, mama and baby dancers and pregnancy yoga providers
Cheer Leaders, ballerinas and Reike healers
Community Allotmenteers and bunny rabbits with floppy ears
Miniature goats and sometimes even flooded paths with boats
Socially distant Community Choir Singers, disc golf swingers
Litter pickers, picnickers and ice cream lickers
John’s Tai chi men with sticks, Fiona’s yogis twisting flexible hips
Hula hoopers, kick boxers, skippers and joggers in dodgy Lycra knickers
Tree trail with fairy doors, numerous ball chasing dogs with muddy paws
Foxes, squirrels, owls and stray cats, even shy badgers, a heron and plenty of rats
Athletes, triathletes and park runners and sometimes fallen tree stump drummers
Rainbows, brownies and girl guides and sometimes photographic brides,
Function room with regular weddings, still 12 flower beds with summer bedding
Beavers cubs and scouts and occasionally groups of larger louts
Drug dealers and Simply Cycling wheelers
Underage drinkers and noisy quad bike stinkers
Graffiti artists, geocaches, laughing gas inhalers and Pokémon Go gamers
Metal detectorist’s, arboriculturalists and sometimes antisocial behaviourists
Some dog owners who don’t pick up and grumpy walkers in expensive trainers scraping off the muck
Tree huggers and mostly in summer amorous young lovers
Pat who will chat to anyone outside the café and Joan in her park boundary garden who offers free plants to all who pass
Suzie in her environmentally friendly ice-cream van and even a trumpet blowing man
Kick boxing, gym, boot camps, Pilates and mixed touch rugby for the fitness fanatics
Football teams for all and golf with a Frisbee instead of a ball
Volunteers who work long hours, blossoms in spring cascading from lush green bowers
Parakeets, woodpeckers and countless other feathered friends thrive
Bees that buzz contentedly producing honey in their secret apiary hive
Numerous mature trees, like an outdoor art gallery, an ever changing feast for the eyes.
Kite flyers, drone flyers and tight rope walkers, home schoolers, bush craft folk and hopscotch chalkers
A woman who brushes up and bags the fallen leaves and man in a hammock swinging between two trees
Memorial benches, including one especially for people happy to chat and a silky chicken killer Bengal cat
Jean Thompson
What a great talk Jean Byrne gave us on the benefits of walking and enjoying open spaces, even in the centre of an urban environment. Her talk was centred mainly around the delights of Longford Park in Stretford, a park I have known for many years, so there was nostalgia as well as pleasure.
As Jean talked, you could almost breathe in the fresh air, the smell of the grass, the plants and the trees. Thanks to Lindy, I also learned a new word, petrichor, the smell of earth after rain. A new word for a familiar smell that had not previously had a name. I learned about forest bathing, a concept I had not known about but would certainly want to try out. How wonderful to just be in the middle of trees and breathe everything around you into your body and soul.
There were so many comments about how everyone had got themselves out during Covid into the fresh air and green spaces, away from the imposed restrictions. How those solitary walks had lifted the spirits. Even if you weren’t with another person, if you passed someone (at a safe distance of course!) the greenery around you bound you together. Behind the obligatory masks, you smiled at each other conspiratorially, and had faith that all would be well while you could still breathe the open air.
For myself, even if I am not physically out in the countryside, urban or rural, I even get the same feeling of air and release when watching something on TV or film. It could be a tense and even violent programme, but then you see some beautiful countryside amid the horror, and the horror evaporates, and the tension relaxes for a time.
True we do not have sunshine all through the summer months, and yes we have a lot of rain, but we should take heart that the weather gives us the greenery and the varied plant life that more than makes up for those damp and chilly days we like to complain about!
Pauline Omoboye
Green spaces.
When I think of green spaces
I'm able to breathe
To open my lungs
To accept the breeze
To be at one with nature
The access is free
The secret of trees holding history.
When I think of green spaces
The aroma in the air
Petals and leaves blowing everywhere
How we take it for granted the feel of the bark
The dewdrops that fall, the flowers in the park
The tweet of the blue tits the butterfly wings
The Blackbird so majestic it chooses to sing
And fly off in the skies
The smell in the air
The clouds so fluffy in abundance everywhere.
So, when I think of green spaces
And the grass beneath my feet
That feeling of nature is more than a treat
The buzz of the bees
The flowers that sway
Take your socks off and feel it
Capture each day.
©Pauline Omoboye
Joyce Lindley
NATURE
If ever there was a time to heed nature this is it. Do NOT underestimate the power of this force! Oh yes, pretty gardens, grand mountains, amazing seascapes and far away vistas, but……
This is a battle we seem to be losing and are we even aware of it!! I have seen a jetty composed of huge concrete building blocks, tumbled like lego bricks by the force of a cyclone. I have seen tons and tons of sand just lifted up as though they were feathers with the force of a Spring tide on the Pacific ocean, and dumped on the gardens and promenade of a beach resort, leaving behind what I found out later were the foundations of a pier built in Victorian times and then destroyed by nature.
Are we not in the midst of tremendous change brought about by climate variations and are finding out about farmers’ frustrations at the extreme wet weather preventing crops being planted, and harvested! Then, in other parts of the world, droughts having the same effect.
And yet, I see people in so called “advanced” countries living a sort of second life involving the technological computerised world with their noses glued to a screen most of the day, never thinking that all around them is another real world that is vital for their continued existence!
Mark Taylor
Terry Takes his Tea Outside
It was the first sunny morning of spring, so Terry took his tea outside. Everything tastes better outside, he thought. He had never known why, but it had always been true, from jam butties and Vimto as a kid to a pint in the beer garden. Sunshine helped, but you didn’t need it. Everything just tasted better outside.
Terry was proud of his garden, renovated last year and still pristine. No weeds poked through the artificial lawn or the concrete patio. Before, dandelion leaves choked the grass and great arching brambles tangled every open space. Birds crapped on the laundry and squirrels stole his biscuits. Low maintenance, he had told the landscaper. Now it was always perfect.
He sipped, and tasted nothing. Too hot, he supposed. Two gardens away, something screeched and cawed, some coarse ugly bird darting around in the scruffy sycamore. He reached for his headphones and plugged his ears with glorious silence. This was peace: their little plot of green, his little bubble of quiet. The tea had cooled a little, and he took a healthy gulp. It was down his throat before he felt the warmth of it, never mind the flavour.
It tastes better outside, he told himself again, not noticing what he hadn’t noticed. At the edge of the lawn, a beetle like a drop of green sea-glass emerged from beneath the fence, nosed at the plastic blades, and retreated.
Halfway through the cup he felt a sharpness at his wrist, the kind he would have slapped away instinctively had his hands been free. Instead he raised his arm and looked. The thing that had bitten him was no bigger than a grass seed, and so translucent he could barely see it. He watched the smallest dot of red appear. The itching began in earnest, then, but he didn’t flatten the creature or flick it away. Just for a moment it made him think of his childhood dog, drinking from the puddles in their little yard, and of all the life you found in those puddles when you looked close. After a minute the creature shook out its wings, and Terry watched it curl off in search of still waters. He pressed his warm mug to the itch, then took a long, slow draught. The tea tasted sharp as a bite and rich as giant’s blood. The synthetic turf was lifting at the corners.
Sue Ash
For me the most the poignant conclusion that emerged was the recognition and confirmation that the natural world does not need mankind to survive and thrive, whereas we absolutely need the eco system it sustains for us to also survive and thrive. My poems below record occasions when being nature has lifted my mood and helped maintain my mental wellbeing.
Autumn Walk
While others busy themselves
With family chores
I walk in solitude
In the early twilight
Wrapped and comforted
by the silence
Today the wood
is mine alone
Cushioned by the Autumn carpet
My steps make no sound
to my ears
Though below ground they must
echo a thunderous warning
I hear nothing
No whisper of leaves
No creaking of trunks
All is still and the
peace pervades me
The muted evening glow
enriches the autumn colours
I have seen it many times
But the beauty of it
continues to fill me with awe
It rekindles memories
I would prefer forgotten
And for a moment I
could be sad
But this tranquillity
seems to bring
a new contentment
Perhaps at last
In my Autumn years
I am learning to walk alone.
Autumn Vision
White sunlight sparkling
Through the leaves of the willow
Dancing on the water flowing by
The black silhouette of one man fishing
All this catches my eye
Seized by
the beauty and drama,
For an instant a part of this scene
I glow with feelings of pleasure
In love with our world once again
This must be a glimpse of heaven
Feels so good to be alive
Grateful for the gift of seeing
With a heart that is open wide
Want to stay
Stretch this moment
Know it will pass all too soon
Not long before I'm returned
To others in worlds full of gloom
But now
When I pass this way again
This vision returns to my mind
Brightening the grey days of winter
Leaving all sadness behind
Snowflakes
Watching snowflakes fall
Like us,
Every one unique
Each with its own delicate pattern
Like us,
Some floating serenely
Through their existence
Others falling in a flurry
To an earlier end
Like us,
Not long
Before they melt
Back into the earth
Never to be repeated
Would that we could all
Be so beautiful
In our time
Tony Goulding
During our lively and thought-provoking discussion, I reflected on the fact that historically it would have been irrelevant. Prior to the Industrial revolution and the growth of large conurbations the vast majority of people lived and worked in a rural setting.
In response to this change movements arose to counter the perceived harm to physical and mental health it engendered. Workers in the mills and factories would use some of their free time to escape from the unhealthy environment of areas like Hulme and Ancoats to walk to the leafy and still largely rural townships of Chorlton-cum-Hardy and Didsbury. As is the nature of things, some of these like-minded walkers formed groups of Ramblers and later Cycling Clubs (such as The Clarion). Soon they began to venture further afield which led to clashes with the landowners of the moorland where they sought to roam; famously in the mass trespass of Kinder Scout on 24th April 1932.
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Later, “Rambling Maps” featured in The Manchester Evening News and other publications, and I have childhood memories of doing some of these around North Cheshire / Derbyshire with my family.
Some enlightened members of the establishment also promoted efforts to promote more “green spaces”. Foremostly in the provision of Public Parks, the first three Peel Park in Salford and Philipps Park in East Manchester, and Queens Park in Harpurhey, Manchester opened on the same day 22nd August 1846. These were added to periodically, one large one Platt Fields being saved from being swallowed up as building by the efforts of a local Liberal political activist Mr. William Royle.
On a smaller scale there is the work of Mr. Leo Grindon, his wife, Rosa, and other Manchester Field Naturalists who encouraged the construction of new housing with gardens.
In turn this led to the Garden City movement and the development of Wythenshawe and on a much smaller scale the earlier Chortonville in Chorlton-cum-Hardy.
Some observations were made at the session on the impact of such schemes resulting on pressure to build on Green Belt land and a depopulation of inner cities leading to impoverishment of the remaining citizens.
The Stories of Our Lives 