Viola

I am lucky enough to have an allotment right at the end of our garden, so near that we have put in a gate there for easy access meaning  that I have absolutely no excuse  not to tend to it in every spare moment. Well, yes indeed.

When we first moved here about 23 years ago,  the allotments were inhabited by a gaggle of old men, known collectively as the postman, the Spanish man, the Irishman and so on. However the whole site (and allotment life in general)  was kept in order by Viola, the Queen of everything fruit and veg, who had a large plot at the far end of the site. She lived at the end of our  street and spent every single waking hour in the allotment. Every morning she would walk up the road, wig at a slightly jaunty angle ( sometimes on completely backwards) carrying buckets of compost,  and every evening she would return, the buckets overflowing with spinach, rhubarb, potatos and cauliflowers the size of footballs.

Originally from the island of Grenada, Viola , like many of her generation had come over to the UK in search of a better life in the early 50’s. Her first port of call was a boarding house somewhere in South London where she ended up meeting her husband Ernest, known by one and all as Nessa.They went to have three children.  Their early life here was a struggle,  encountering  hostility and such blatant racism that I could barely believe the stories she told me of their every day life in London. People would regularly spit on her in the street,  and it was not uncommon for dog mess to be posted through the letterbox of their flat. But being possessed with an indomitable spirit, Viola just seemed to shrug and get on with it. She was quite extraordinary, a real character, very difficult if you got on the wrong side of her, stubborn and strong as an ox,  had no time for people she didnt trust or viewed as time wasters,  but if  she liked you she was yours for life. She once chased a young and terrified council official out of the allotment waving her fork at him,  after he had dared to come in and ask her questions about the proposed development on the site ( which in the end never happened) and she was certainly unafraid to voice her opinion on matters

We became firm friends. She would regularly knock on my door and come in for a cup of tea,  or we would sit in the allotment while  she regaled me with stories of her childhood and tips on how to grow fruit and vegetables, chuckling as she imparted snippets of local gossip. Indeed, I have never seen such a plot as hers. Huge showy peonies and dahlias, beds crammed with oversize onions and garlic, asparagus beds, spinach, chard, rows  and rows of brightly coloured beans and peas, everything she touched blossomed and sprouted.

She made her own clothes out of fabulously un co ordinated colours and patterns, with all sorts of convenient pockets and belts so that she could keep bits of string and scissors, seed packets and hankies  close at hand, with large floppy flowery hats tied tightly round her head in summer, tied like an oversized Easter bonnet with blowsy ribbons. Imagine an over the top  Chelsea flower show exhibit and you will get the idea. In the early days before we became members  she treated her fellow plot holders  ( Spanish man, postman,  Irishman etc ) with kindly but barely concealed impatience as if they were naughty schoolboys  ( though they were mostly in their 70’s) and indeed they were pretty hopeless, preferring to sit in the sun chatting rather than actually doing much gardening although on seeing Viola approaching they would scarper back to their untidy plots, terrified they were in for a telling off from matron.

I kept asking if I could have a bit of land  but my requests were always met with ” sorry, we’re full” which was a little untrue,  seeing as at least half of the site was overgrown and full of shopping trolleys rather than potatos. In the end the council gave everyone notice to quit which finally they did.  Apart from Viola who shrugged, muttered that the only way the council were going to get rid of her was if she was carried out feet first and went back to her digging.

At this point Tessa and I got involved. While Viola dug her heels in and carried on as if nothing had changed, we decided to approach the council in order to persuade them that these allotments should be preserved. It wasn’t  easy , the organisation that originally had dealt with the site seemed to have vanished and it was almost impossible to find anyone who could help. Eventually we managed, with a lot of canvassing to find somebody at the council who agreed to talk to us. A decision he almost immediately regretted because we badgered him to the point that once he saw me in Sainsburys and hid behind the bread section hoping I wouldn’t recognise him. However this onslaught finally paid off,  and we eventually persuaded Southwark council to grant us a temporary license to be renewed on a yearly basis.

And so we started to renovate the site, applying for funding to get a new steel fence with gates and padlocks, filled skips, cleared and dug, made paths and beds,  watched at all times by Viola who was never short of an opinion,  or advice on how to do things properly , and found our rather amateur approach very amusing.

And the allotments flourished and blossomed. We managed to extend our license to a fifteen year one. More people and local groups got involved, we became a community, people came, people left, we planted fruit trees and made ponds, built sheds and a pergola. Viola continued to be a permanent and well loved fixture,  though as the years went by she became more and more frail. Nessa succumbed to dementia, letting  himself out of the house while she was in the allotment, and we would find him wandering around Burgess Park in his pyjamas with no idea of who or where he was. I would go and check on them in the evenings and it soon became apparant that things could not continue as they were, but Viola refused to let Social services take him into a home, so a team of carers were put in place. The pair of them struggled on, but because she was reluctant to leave him alone, she  was less and less able to come, and after Nessa finally died, she went rapidly downhill. Her visits gradually came to a halt and for the last couple of years of her life she didnt come at all.

I still think of her and miss her when I wander over to her old plot.  Where she used to garden,  there are now beehives. Her old shed has been re built, the apple tree that she loved is well tended and still bears fruit every year. None of us would still be here if it hadn’t been for her. Although it is some years now since she was with us, her old plot is still and always will be called “Violas”.