Snapshots

Regeneration

'I've brought you here today to show you what your great great grandmother started, all those years ago.'

'I've been so looking forward to this grandad, I've heard so much about the project.'

'From tiny acorns mighty oaks do grow, and now you're fourteen, I'm sure you will be able to appreciate the efforts she made, after all you'll be old enough to vote next year.'

So my great great granny Rose was really responsible for all this?'

'Well she set the seeds, so to speak,' Evelyn's grandad gave a little chuckle.  'I can just about remember her' he said. ' She lived at number 62 Box lane, a terraced house in an ordinary street, with manicured gardens and brick weave drives, so neat. Now step into the lift, and if we pull the lever, yes that lever, the water from the stream will make the lift ascend; taking us up, high, high above the tree canopy.'

Evelyn was quiet, taking in the views as the lift moved upward then came to a stop.  Her grandad watched her enjoying the wonderful landscape that stretched all around them for as far as the eye could see. 

'So what happened grandad, how did granny Rose do all this?'

'Well, reports about the wildlife were always on the news.  Habitat being destroyed, areas of natural beauty being concreted over for roads, railways, housing.  You name it things were a right state. Birds and animals becoming endangered species, even black birds.'

'That's awful  Grandad, so what happened?'

'Granny Rose stopped mowing the lawns'

'Mowing the lawns?'

'Yes, she said that she was making mini meadows.  She bought wild flower seeds and  grasses and before long she had a beautiful miniature meadow, attracting all sorts of wildlife.  Well the papers got hold of it, and before you knew it , the idea spread and those mini meadows started springing up everywhere.   

'Wow, that's amazing, what happened next?'

A few months later she ripped up her shingle drive and put in hedgerow.  She sold her car and a lot of belongings and bought a small building plot where she planted trees and bushes.  By now, Granny Rose was making a bundle of money from the publicity and donations.  She  bought up  building plots and created virgin meadows and woods.  People thought it was a good idea, they started to reclaim the concreted areas, and put them back to greenery.  Forests and woodlands started reappearing, lots of allotments too; and it all helped with lessening the greenhouse gasses.'

'Wait Grandad', are you telling me that they knocked down people's homes?'

'Not exactly Evelyn, well not at first, they changed them and made less of them, a new pro environment and humanist coalition were elected to govern, and people listened to a few home truths.'

'What were they Grandad', Evelyn's eyes sparkled with curiosity.

'That there were too many people in the world, and nature was being decimated by human progress, too much pollution and not enough concentration on the needs of the planet, or the other creatures that lived on it.'  Evelyn's grandad continued with a serious tone to his voice.  'Yes, humans are very clever and can construct wonderful architecture, but nothing can compare to the wonders of nature, if.... It is not constantly meddled with.  And, given the right encouragement, nature can provide and save the planet and the people on it.'  Grandad laughed, 'One of the new government slogans was, "copulate not populate", maybe you've read that in your history books, but that helped too.'

Anyway, fewer houses were built and then environmentally friendly houses, like the one you live in, were constructed in an area and way that didn't decimate nature.  The deconstruction of the concrete jungle, so to speak.'

Evelyn looked around her at the river and wetlands teeming with birds, then across to the forests of oak, elms, and birch. Larch trees towards the west and all sorts of hedgerow,  not in lines and much of it very dense.  'It's amazing grandad, amazing and beautiful, what used to be here?'

Evelyn's grandad smiled and said, 'London'.