Meanwhile Gardens

A people's project that was successful

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

In the mid to late 1970s people decided that a piece of derelict land by the Westbourne Park Underground station would be good to be turned into an adventure playground for kids; the grab a hammer, some nails and boards and build your own things kind of place. Kids could do that then on such playgrounds. Health & Safety regulations hadn't gone mad back then as yet.

It was a well organized place though a rough and ready Hippie kind of affair in other ways but the kids loved it all no end.

Nowadays Meanwhile Gardens is fully on the map as a “park”, but sanitized no doubt, though I must say that I have not been back since around 1979 or thereabouts and thus don't know it really from ground level.

However, if maps and satellite pictures are anything to go by then it all appears rather landscaped and regulated now, though it has one of the country's, if not the world's, renowned skatepark for skating and skateboarding.

Other areas, from the website of the association that still runs this park, are a little farm, children's play areas and lots of nature. Good in many aspects for sure but the wildness and the adventure that it was then seem to have departed.

This piece of once derelict land, though, has turned into a green oasis in an area that is – illegally – very much devoid of green recreation spaces. I say illegally because law states that there has to be enough parks and open spaces for recreation available and government needs to be challenged when there is a lack of it.

The land alongside the Grand Union Canal, which is now Meanwhile Gardens, was, more than likely, going to be developed at some stage but local people decided to put it to much better use, by turning it into a safe place for their children to play, in those days with a great deal of adventure thrown in. Yes, some kids got hurt by hitting themselves on the finger with a hammer, or scratching themselves with a saw, etc. but it was fun and adventure, and the kids loved it no end.

In those days it was all ad hoc and there was no real certainty if next week or next month the council would not decide to remove the temporary permission and decide to use the land to build upon.

The final outcome is a good one, it would appear, bar of the fact that the great adventure playground of old is no more and that is a shame. Many a kid learned how to use a hammer and a saw and such back then there in that place.

It proves, however, what can be achieved if people are determined enough and I guess one day I have to go back for a visit to see how it has really turned out now and, maybe, write a visit report on Meanwhile Gardens.

© 2011