MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR
I’m getting onto a bus with 11 other volunteers who have turned out at eight in the morning for voluntary duties with the British Trust For Conservation Volunteers (BTCV).
The BTCV are large well established group and work with up to 300,000 volunteers a year throughout the UK and Ireland. One of BTCV’s guiding principles is to improve the environment positively and sustainably, and at the same time increase ecological awareness and motivate the long term unemployed back to work.
OSIER BEDS
We were told to bring sturdy boots, a waterproof jacket and a packed lunch for the day, as we will be out for a while. It’s a bit of a magical mystery tour as no-one has been told where we are going. The bus has picked us up from the centre of Nottingham and headed out into the countryside where the mystery was revealed. We were to do some maintenance work on an osier bed 14 miles away. Osier beds are traditionally areas of very wet ground that have been set aside to grow willows for basket making. I know exactly where we are heading because it’s on the outskirts of the town where I grew up and spent most of my summers when I was an irritating teenager.
Cue the wobbly images and music as I float back to my childhood again and have a flashback within a flashback…….
The osier beds are an area of about 5 acres and are a ten-minute walk from the main road and civilisation. My friends and I had a spot in there where we would pitch our tents at the beginning of the summer holidays and keep them up for weeks, using them as our second homes. It was a very handy place, as I could still get home everyday for my tea and have a bath. It might have felt like living wild but the home comforts were never far away.
SIMPLE PLEASURES
We had haystacks to sit on and regularly had a campfire and occasionally did a bit of cooking. A friend of mine tried to heat up a tin of soup one day…. without opening the tin. The results were very dramatic as it blew up in his face spraying him with molten minestrone. When his parents asked what the injury was, embarrassingly he told them he fell off of his bike and scraped his face across the tarmac, as if that would make the parents feel better. They didn’t question it and lessons were learned.
Camping out gave us an ideal opportunity to get up to late night mischief too. For some reason we thought it was hilarious to get ten of us into a phone box then set off a smoke bomb. They weren’t actually smoke bombs as such; they were fumigation tablets for killing pests in greenhouses. How we survived I don’t know. I realise now that the police cleared us out of the small metal booths because we were poisoning ourselves, not because we were being public nuisances…another lesson learned.
BACK TO THE BEDS
The osier beds were a haven for us and if you kept to certain areas, you didn’t sink. The closest place I can think of that reminds me of the woodland is Enagh Loch in Derry near Strathfoyle. There’s an area there where a World War 2 plane crashed and was never found as it sunk into the water and mud.
Well coming back as a volunteer, we start to empty the van of slash hooks and sandwiches. Our job for the day is to clear the brambles. I couldn’t believe the difference in the area. It was dry, very dry. There was a road going to the edge of the osier wood, put in by the Boots Company that had built a factory next to it as it was a good area logistically to the motorway system. The factory had no windows as it was used for developing film so the workers there were in darkness all day. The designers probably thought that the staff needed something pretty to look at in their break times so a small lake, complete with fountain, had been dug near the main doors. To feed the lake, the water had been redirected from the osier bed, and not surprisingly, the marshy area had turned into a regular woodland.
The BTCV organisers were well aware of the situation, but that made no difference to their enthusiasm in up keeping the area maintained. I think they knew that the Boots factory would come and go, and when it did the osier bed would get it’s water back.
At the end of a long day I carried the slashooks back to the van and in my enthusiasm I had far too many of them in my arms “You are an accident waiting to happen” one of the leaders told me as I struggled to keep the sharp blades away from my legs. “Take your time, it’s not a race. Carry less and make more trips.” They advised. Another lesson learned…..
GETTING INVOLVED
The BTCV organisation has quietly been helping to re-establish a lot of neglected corners of the country. Starting in 1959, they are celebrating 50 years of environmental work. The closest group to us are in Derry on Hawkin St. Because of the economic climate, voluntary work is on the increase and hopefully groups such as the BTCV will benefit from people having more time on their hands. If you fancy getting involved and taking part in voluntary environmental work, you can ring them on +44 28 71262664 or e-mail I.Black@btcv.org.uk
