JackMcH's Allotment

Thanks @Baymule , my allotment is about two miles from my home in the Walled Garden of Balbirnie house (Lord Balbirnie & Lady Balfour) the walled garden was originally the house's, larder, fruit veg flowers and a laid out park with box privet
Lady Balfour spent her days travelling abroad and bringing many rhododendrons to the estate, and many rare ones, all are still in what is now a park, all labelled and licence tagged

Balbirnie house is now an Hotel

Anyway my allotment is in the centre of what was the walled garden, 20' high walls, so very little wind, quite a Sun trap and no access to anyone who does not hold a key, so no vandalism we have 62 plots and 24 glass houses originals restored along with the six inch cast iron heating pipes

There is a big row going on at the moment as the council wants to increase the rent by 20% this year, so for the 250 square yard plot with running water and toilets it will increase TO £18 a year :-)
I have to bite my tongue and stay quiet, as I know family back home are paying abour £200 a year WITHOUT water or toilets

Thanks for your interest, CU When our plane arrives Houston we have lift orf

 

Very interesting @shiney. I knew some of the information but not some of the details.
Too true about shortages, rationing was still in evidence up until about 1958? (guess, could have been longer) for some items, certainly sweets were rationed for quite a while post the war.
My Mother got married in 1940 ( told by her Mother to get married PDQ as you could visit a husband WHEN ( somewhat pessimistic!) he was wounded but not if you were just engaged!! such a romantic reason).Neither Mum nor the baker could source enough icing sugar to ice the wedding cake, (getting the ingredients for the cake alone was a struggle) so she had paper put round her cake instead.
She managed to buy some pretty underwear, for the big day, which was also as rare as hen's teeth evidently, about 6 months after she was married she lent her pretty garments to her best friend as she couldn't find any to buy herself. Friend had had sleepless nights thinking she was going to have to wear her thick navy blue, complete with pocket, school knickers on her wedding day!

 

My Mum and Dad, used to put six fresh hens eggs on the small wall and next door gave us a bucket of coal in exchange
I have an old ration book I used to use to get my 2oz of sweets per week.

 

I was far away in the Far East at the time, so it did not harm me, just my family and it did not harm them as they could not afford a car
However I feel that in the next few months we will be shortly in Darkness here in Fife, Gnasher has closed our last coal fired power generator, and Number two Nuclear power has closed down due to seaweed in the water intakes, wind is either too strong or not enough for wind power and we have not had too much rain for the Hydro plant, The Sun has not shone for about two months.

I do have candles and a tilly lamp with some petrol

 

Oh you big fibber @Jack McHammocklashing the sun has been splitting the heavens over most of the last 2 weeks! However, that said I absolutely agree with rest of your post. Not a blade turning on the 3 wind turbines near here and it's been ooober cold. Thank god for our wood burning stove and better look out the candles too. We may be being somewhat flippant but I am not so sure that we won't be plunged into darkness if this cold and very very still weather continues for a long period of time. Have read the long range (never exactly gospel!) forecast and it is meant to be very settled and cold as it has been recently, for the foreseeable future.

I can remember driving from near London up to Scotland when the petrol shortage was on the go and 50?mph I think it was speed restrictions on motorways. We saved a huge amount of fuel going much slower, father thought this was wonderful, the rest of us thought it dreadful as it had put about 3 hours onto a very long journey. Father made all sorts of rash vows never to drive fast again.......those didn't last long

 

Love the ingenuity @shiney. I was working for the Government at the time of the 3 day week and therefore were exempt much to my annoyance. While my working day didn't alter quite a few of my friends were having it really cushy.
Oh sorry Jack, shiney and I seem to have somewhat hijacked your thread having an "all our yesterdays" blether. I won't post about times gone by here again I promise!

 

I can see the need for allotments when you have no place to plant a garden. It is hard for me to picture that because most homes here have yards. Most people don't plant anything beyond a grassy lawn and some shrubs. But I am my father's child and must dig in the dirt.

Rationing went on here during WW2, I remember my Mother talking about it. The government encouraged Victory Gardens and lots of people grew their own food. How it has changed..... now the government gives out EBT cards so people can get "free" food and won't turn a hand to help themselves.

 

I can understand it is a bit difficult for you to visualise the difference between the majority of gardens in the UK in comparison to where you live. Having visited a friend in Fort Worth a couple of years ago I have seen your sort of typical housing areas which are not really like the UK, but then I think Texas alone far less the whole of The USA is 3 times the size of the UK!
Like Shiney I have a very big garden of about 2 acres but that is mainly because I live in the countryside and in Scotland which is much less populated the in the South of England. There used to be many more houses with big gardens (even around here) but then "garden grabbing" became very popular (owners got planning permission for part of their garden to have a house/s planted on it!). Nowadays it is really quite difficult to find a property which has say 5 acres which isn't in the middle of nowhere or slap bang next door to a motorway! There are some but you have to have very deep pockets (lots of money) to afford to buy them!