March 2000
Liam's
Letter from London
March strolled along the towpaths into London with a whistle on its lips and a swagger around the hips. It has been a very benign month with hardly any rainfall and all us gardeners are beside ourselves looking for that rain to give that essential boost to our plants waiting in bud to burst.
That is not to say that London is not blooming. The cherry trees are in full colour and pink is mixing with white in an exciting splash on nature?s palate. Whole swathes of daffodils are casting a yellow mantle across the parks and gardens of the city. The magnolia trees are in luxurious flower, the forsythia shrubs a blazing yellow and the first backpackers are arriving bursting with curiosity. The days are warm and its that time of year to consider changing to lighter clothes but beware, for there is a lurking chill waiting to send you shivering back to the deeper layers of winter wool.
From an Irish perspective, we were encouraged by the feast day of St. Patrick on the 17th March. It is an opportunity to welcome the burgeoning energy of Spring and cast off the restrictions of colder months. If we have been penitential for Lent its an oasis to aim for and if we have given nothing up, well, whose perfect. Hammersmith was thronging on Patrick?s night with nearly all of the pubs luring customers in with special offers, especially on the Guinness and whisky fronts. The William Morris was pulsating with the rush and expectation of the coming weekend and voices soared and intermingled in a frenzied din.
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Beyond the Pale, a favourite Irish traditional band, was appearing at the Hammersmith Irish Centre. They deliver great high-energy Irish music and tunes with a vibrant contemporary edge and they play great covers of a range of Irish songs. The centre had been booked out for weeks and apart from the attraction of the band the Guinness was only £1 per pint. That would indeed bring the smile to Irish eyes on St Patrick?s Day or any other day for that matter. The night got under way and the band was beating and pulsing and the dancers came from the audience and battered the boards with a Celtic determination to make the most of the evening.
The bar was another matter. The scene was mayhem as Mark, the bar manager, and his team raced up and down like frenzied fairies trying to deal with an overwhelming deluge of demand. Ice cubes whistled through the air, glasses were pumped up against optics, tills were whacked with impatience to open and bodies skidded past each other in a glorious attempt to cope. The customers tried every ply and plot in the book. They were nice and polite, insistent and angry, aggressive and loud but they only got served if the fates smiled for a second and a bar member looked up and caught an eye in a sea of pleading faces. The bar staff were heroic to keep going for their job was a hopeless one for as the night grow longer the thirst became stronger but when it came to the last knockings there was a semblance of inebriated satisfaction. St Patrick had been truly remembered and the shamrock well soaked for another year.
In the following week at the Centre there was an Irish community open art exhibition. The paintings had drifted in from all around London and down to Bristol and Brighton. It was very interesting to put faces to the paintings and when you realised that it was Joe who used the library and Nora a frequent actress who were contributing, it added extra zest to the display. It felt that Irish feelings were bubbling up through the Centre as if a well had been drilled and green gold was pumping up to claim recognition, to make a statement. A local two piece group played in the main hall and Mark was more relaxed with the pouring of the black gold, Guinness, and had time to chat and possibly even miss the ballyhoo of Patrick?s night with all its crazy but enjoyable pandemonium. That night the time had sure passed quickly.
London is greeting the spring with the opening of farmers markets in places like Notting Hill and Islington. They are bypassing the supermarkets and shops and selling their wares direct to a gleeful public. Fantastic organic fruit juices and fresh meats with stone ground wholemeal bread are available at very reasonable prices. I snapped up well-matured lupin and foxgloves plants at a £1 a shot and they should be thriving and blooming in Len, the pensioner?s garden, by mid summer. Len is well into his nineties and had the quintessential English garden for many years that delighted the estate. He is now too old to garden and he had asked me to do some weeding and I have gradually drifted into full maintenance and passionate addiction. I watch every movement and growth with the keenest of interest and as Len would say, isn?t nature wonderful. She certainly is.
When Len was a youngster at eighty-nine he was late for his part time job looking after the plants for a business down the Harrow Road. He rushed across this busy road and was knocked down by a passing car. He was carted off to St Mary?s hospital and at his age that should have been the end. Not for Len. He informed the nursing staff that he had no time to convalesce and had to get back to the garden that needed him in the middle of summer blooming. The garden quickly healed him more efficiently than any hospital and in giving his love to his garden Len was soon returned to robust health.
Poem of the Month
Thomas MacDonagh
He shall not hear the bittern cry
In the wild sky, where he is lain,
Nor voices of the sweeter birds
Above the wailing of the rain.
Nor shall he know when loud March blows
Thro? slanting snows her fanfare shrill,
Blowing to flame the golden cup
Of many an upset daffodil.
But when the Dark Cow leaves the moor,
And pastures poor with greedy weeds,
Perhaps he?ll hear her low at morn
Lifting her horn in pleasant meads.
Francis Ledwidge
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