| Crystal
Palace |
This is a brief
preamble to connect you to a current environmental issue - the attempt to stop one of
London's most beautiful parks from being turned into a multiplex cinema and car park. Last summer, I went on a school outing with my youngest child, then 5. We were on a hired bus, having spent a great day at Crystal Palace Park. This park has several different areas for kids, a small zoo; a playground with lots of climbing frames, swings etc; a lake with enormous dinosaur sculptures lots of ducks and geese and a little island in the middle with a small hut on it; a miniature railway; a fairground and pony and trap rides. It is also the site of one of the best sports facilities in London. It is called Crystal Palace because it contains the site of the Crystal Palace which was built for The Great Exhibition of 1851, so apart from its current worth as a recreational space, it contains a significant amount of history. The bus got stuck in some very heavy traffic just to the north of the park and, wiping the rain-streaked window to see what the hold-up was, I was shocked to see hordes of police in a large cordon, the road ahead blocked, heavy equipment such as bulldozers, cranes etc, and a lot of activity within the top entrance to the park itself. Then I realised - the police were attempting to evict the protestors who had been living in the trees, in order to stop the developers moving in and destroying the park. There had been minimal press coverage of the situation and if you weren't a resident of Crystal Palace you would hardly be aware of the scandal that had been taking place for months, although the residents had mounted an extremely efficient and well-organised campaign of protest, since aided by the tree-dwellers. Well, I thought about leaping out of the bus, yelling "Fascist Pigs", and draping myself across a bulldozer, but one look at the happy, tired 5-year-old faces surrounding me, chattering happily about their day, all blissfully unaware of the iniquitous excesses of Capitalism being played out 50 yards away from them, stopped me - although I have no doubt that my particular 5 year old urban warrior would have willingly joined in the fray. So I did nothing... There was something about the beauty of a day spent having a great time with a bunch of kids contrasted with the ugliness of what was happening in front of my eyes which made me feel profoundly sad. Crystal Palace Park has a special place in my heart as, many years ago, before I had ever been there, I had a dream while in Italy about a place with lots of green space, a zoo and a lake with a hut on an island in the middle.... a place I thought my unconscious had invented. When I came back to England, about a week later, a friend invited me to a picnic in C.P. Park. After we’d eaten, she suggested we take the kids to see the animals in the zoo. Yes, you've guessed it... I rounded a corner and there was the place in my dream, correct in every detail. I have no idea why or what that dream was for, and I've been to the park many times since and have failed each time to have a significant encounter, or meet my destiny. Maybe it was so that one day I'd put a link up on a web site.... If you want to learn about the Campaign, please do visit: It's an excellent site, so is the Park. S.K.
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