Our dwindling open spaces are caught in a struggle between money-hungry councils and users desperate for a bit of peace
Last week I trotted dutifully up to a corner of Hampstead Heath, to record a BBC radio programme devoted to nature writing and, specifically, trees. All morning, producers looked anxiously at the leaking sky and filled out risk assessment forms to shield us from falling acorns and rampant squirrels; as the heavens brightened, we lowered ourselves gingerly on to blankets and prepared to entertain the nation. All I can add is that it’s one thing getting down, and quite another getting up. As I said to the sound engineer, whose recording equipment was balanced expertly on a tree trunk, it’s no mean feat if you’re fat and 50.
But as conversation flowed, what riches: the American novelist Richard Powers, author of a vast novel about the power of trees, describing an epiphany as he walked the forest high above Silicon Valley and realised that none of what was below would exist without the surrounding plant life; Jessica J Lee describing her research into the long history of the heath and its multiple uses; and discussing with Melissa Harrison, author of All Among the Barley, the insistent influence of class and power on these seemingly purely bucolic spaces.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2NBpu4h
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