From 1947 to Today: Community, Volunteering and Pride in Didsbury Park
THE HISTORY OF DIDSBURY PARK - A VIEW OF SANDHURST ROAD IN 1947
We have taken a slightly different historical view of Didsbury Park this week, as we move forward in time to a sunny day in 1947. In the attached picture 1 we witness a repair being undertaken on the garden wall of the house on the corner of Sandhurst Road and Didsbury Park (the road). The park is on the opposite side of Sandhurst Road from where the repair is taking place.
This picture has some really interesting features, such as:
look at the tiny family car being driven along Sandhurst Road. I am not an expert but I wonder what make of car it is? Can you notice the open window on the drivers side - probably because most driving signals at this time required hand signals to be performed and of course it was many years before air conditioning was a standard feature in cars.
if you look at the corner of the park behind the car you will notice that the pedestrian entrance from Sandhurst Road into the park had not been yet been installed. However you will also notice that the ivy is already taking a hold on the old wall along the Flower Walk in the park.
the line of the park hedge looks very neat - maybe something we could look to improve today?
the street gutters in Sandhurst Road look somewhat overgrown with weeds as does the base of the wall itself. This is something which does not exist today especially as MCC sweep this road with a mechanical sweeper every Monday morning.
it is interesting that the man in the picture is wearing a jacket and collared shirt to do this repair job. A sign of the fashion of the times!
Does anybody recognise this man? Maybe he is a council worker or maybe a local person's dad or grandad?
What do you make of the blackboard sign? It certainly looks very bureaucratic for a simple job to re-point some brickwork.
LAST WEEK - ADDITIONAL STORAGE DONATION
Our storage capacity was given a boost last week when a donation of a very solid chest of drawers was donated to us by Deborah from Gillbrook Road. We have now installed it and today Adrian added a new set of robust handles. Thank you Deborah and Adrian.
LAST WEEK - PUPILS FROM BARLOW HIGH SCHOOL VOLUNTEER AT DIDSBURY PARK
It was great to welcome 2 sets of pupils from Barlow High School to the park on Thursday last week as they enthusiastically undertook an afternoon's litter pick in the park. Permission was given for us to take PIcture 2 showing the senior of the 2 groups from the school, as they were ready to start their work across the park.
Thank you to Sonia, supported by Allan, for giving up their time to enable this activity to go ahead. Thank you to the MCC team led by Emma Krijnen Kemp for loaning us the litter picking equipment and thank you to teacher Lucy Waters from Barlow High School who initiated this whole project. Well done everyone - this was a great community activity!
TODAY
We were very lucky with the weather today when dry sunny periods throughout the morning were enjoyed by an impressive total of 64 volunteers in the park. Our volunteers this morning consisted of 30 volunteers from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and a new local volunteer Patrick who had cycled all the way from Chorlton to join us. Everybody was made very welcome.
Today was also a very special day for us, as we welcomed Sandra Crisp from the RHS who was accompanied by Will White from MCC. They came today to judge us for the RHS Britain in Bloom (small parks section) competition and the RHS In Your Neighbourhood competition. They arrived just in time to pick up a quick coffee before then setting off for a tour of the park accompanied by Jude, Ilma, Greg, Louise and myself.
I cannot describe how proud I felt of our team, as everybody, made an amazing contribution to the description of the park and the work we have done. Well done everyone. We all agreed afterwards that we all did the best we could and we did not think we could have done any better. I am afraid we now have to be very patient and wait until October before we receive the results - fingers crossed!
TODAY - RESEEDING THE FOOTBALL PITCH
The volunteers from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority were divided into two teams today. One team chose to work on sweeping and cleaning up paths and the larger group wanted to re-seed the football pitch.
We then split the team on the football pitch to work on the 2 separate worn out goalmouth areas. Picture 3 shows Patrick (on the left) and 12 volunteers from GMCA tackling the goalmouth nearest the cafe, and picture 4 shows the other team of 10 volunteers from GMCA who reseeded the goalmouth nearest the children's playground. There certainly was a level of competition between the teams and both teams did a fabulous job, thank you.
With the warm, damp soil conditions this morning and the rain later this afternoon we are optimistic that we will see a good crop of grass in the next few weeks. Thank you everyone - you all worked really hard today!
TODAY - FINAL PREPARATIONS BEFORE THE RHS JUDGING
Firstly I would like to say a special thank you to the all the following key people who helped us present the park in the best possible condition today:
To the MCC grass cutting team who made a special visit this week to make sure the grass looked short and trim - thank you!
To Brian and the rubbish bin emptying team from MCC for making sure all the bins were emptied early today
To Debs from MCC for organising for the full green waste skip to be removed and a new empty one delivered first thing this morning.
To Jo and the cafe staff who made sure that their large red rubbish container was hidden away in the DNC
To Brenda who washed down the Gillbrook Road gate.
To Denise who was in the park before 8:30am this morning to make sure all the rose beds looked stunning before the judging. See picture 5 with Brenda on her way to fill up the kettle for her hot water and Louise and Denise posing in front of a stunning rose bed.
To the path cleaning team from GMCA who gave an extra spring clean to the paths from the Gillbrook Road entrance to the path to the children's playground. Picture 6 shows a couple of members of this team with full wheelbarrows as they pause behind one of the flower beds prepared by Denise.
To Carl M, Sandra and Alan who tidied up the Bird Garden, especially around the bases of the trees.
To Jude (see picture 7) who did some last minute dead heading of the flowers near the Gillbrook Road entrance
To Julie, Chris, Anne, Agustine and Lesley (see picture 8) who tidied up the rockery area
To Jane, Ilma, Joyce and Christine (see picture 9) who weeded the flower bed opposite the rockery
To the 2 litter picking teams of Luke and Lorna (see picture 10) and Andrew and Winnie
To Allan for coming into the park on various occasions mid-week and using his strimmer to tidy up all the long grass around the cafe garden which was given another cutting today.
To Murray and Yurii who started the project to replace the experimental plastic chain fencing with new metal chain fencing.
What a team effort - thank you everyone!
TODAY - ELSEWHERE IN THE PARK
A special thank you to the woodland team of Greg, Richard, Carl N and Kevin who continued their projects to improve the woodland area by removing many nettles. Thank you guys!
During the early morning today I was also able to participate in a positive meeting with one of the contractors bidding for the work to open up the wild flower meadow to the public. This was a final opportunity for them to ask either MCC or ourselves any final questions or to seek last minute clarification on the specification before submitting their final quotation for the work as soon as possible.
WE ARE RECRUITING - BREAKFAST CLUB MEMBERS
I have recently received a new stock of litter pickers and I am planning to be in Didsbury Park each morning for the next two weeks between 7am and 8am to hand out pickers to new Breakfast Club members. Recruitment has already started and I am pleased to welcome Girdari and Supriya as our latest recruits. If you are a regular early morning walker in the park and you are interested in doing a short daily litter pick as you go around the park in the morning will you please let me know?
Thank you once again for your amazing support.