What Was!

Further Info

Following the war, homes were built quickly using prefabricated parts. Decades on, many of these temporary “prefabs” are still in use, and the people that live in them have come to love them and the community that surrounds them. A council decision to replace them is being fought. In this workshop, held over three days at the Southville centre, we find out why.

This workshop was led by Aikaterini Gegisian, Paul Matson and Paddy Uglow.

Transcript

Today is Sunday the seventh of October 07. The sun is shining and all is peaceful. Sparrows are chattering in the hedges and they’re arguing over their seed containers and fat balls. Pigeons are landing on the roof with an ungainly thud. The washing is out, the animals have been fed, the dogs have been walked, fallen pears picked up off the grass, nuts left out for the squirrels. I counted the trees whilst wandering around the garden clearing up after the kids’ visit yesterday. I’ve got ten trees in the front, nine in the back garden, plus numerous shrubs and bushes, so we get lots of nests in the spring. It’s great watching the mothers collecting food and taking it back to the nests.

The kids that are here weekends and school holidays learn a lot about wildlife, and how important it is to look after it, and to respect nature. They are budding gardeners and know how things grow, where vegetables come from. They help clean out the hutches, the chicken coop, collect the eggs. Saturday afternoons after the boring shopping is done, I take them – three kids, and three dogs – over the fields, each armed with a plastic bag to collect manure. So, other lessons are learnt. Unfortunately the field has been acquired by Bristol South Crematorium, for an extension to their rapidly filling-up cemetery, so at least I suppose it means it won’t be built on.

Our road is quiet weekends, holiday periods. The warehouses are shut and the road ends up round the corner, so there’s no through traffic and very few prefab tenants have cars, me included. No gangs of kids hanging about, so no-one in this community has any concerns about walking around when it’s dark in the evenings.

I try not to think about what will become of my son in the future. He’s mentally ill, and I’ve been caring now for twenty nine years. We’ll probably end up being evicted because I’m refusing to move. I still get very angry when I think back to a conversation I had with a housing officer. He asked me, didn’t I think I was being rather selfish in not being willing to move out so that three homes can be built where my one is? I feel very vulnerable knowing that someone else has control of my life, that my garden will be cleared and concreted over. Aren’t you supposed to be, and feel, safe in your home?

I worry about what will happen to all the life in the garden: frogs, dragonflies, hedgehogs, squirrels, slow worms, and even the insects – there are a great variety. There’s a barn owl which glides over silently at dusk. All of which will go.

Prefab areas and communities were a distinct way of life – something like Brigadoon where one goes back in time. There are connections between war and peace. The communities should have been kept intact so a way of life could have been preserved. In the time they were built, by the council estates, they were built with people in mind: gardens and spaces. Now areas are developed with profits first and foremost. They should remember that the earth is a living, alive substance, not just dirt that can be disposed of or swept away. And it is the basis of all life.

We have been here eighteen years, and I feel as though I have literally rooted in the area. It’s sad seeing so many worried and unhappy people, pensioners that should be living in peace. I believe that the whole area should have been listed as a conservation area, and left to enrich this small part of Bristol.

Credits

Birdsong sound created by pcaeldire, Freesound.iua.upf.edu, used under Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0 licence.

All media not otherwise credited created by the story author, or permission obtained, used under copyright licence.