The first photograph is taken from roughly when I sat on a then yellow painted local authority owned and run bus the first time I laid my eyes on what I call Battlefield. I can remember the dismal grass and broom handle thick sapling trees, recently planted, and a certain forlorn look, as if no one gave this patch much of a chance. It did not seem to me to be a place at all and I doubted the trees would survive vandals as I had seen in another city further south. Wrong. They survived long enough to be cut down by a very different class of vandal. (See my previous post.)
But others are thriving and alongside the refurbished (and magnificent) East Coast Mainline Byker Bridge there is now a mature woodland. The forlorn has been transformed by nature's hand. It is no idyllic place; it challenges in some ways. But if one turns one's mind and looks at matters from another standpoint, survival, even compromise can be noble. I've lived to see it with my own eyes.
No comments:
Post a Comment