"Scott L. Hadley" wrote in message
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"Harold Walker" wrote in message
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Just spent a couple of weeks in what once was "Great Britain".....would
not give tuppence for living there now....it aint what it used to be and
not by a long shot....I used to love to ride the trains to see the
beautiful looking gardens at the back of the houses along the railroad
tracks....no more....most of them looked ugly with huge weed patches and
broken down greenhouses etc....looks as tho the pride that once was there
has gone elsewhere.....walked around a couple of other weed patches that
the locals called 'allotments'. Perhaps one day it will rule the waves
again.

Sad. I spent two glorious weeks in southern and western England in
1990---most of us looked up to that land as a garden heaven---a place
where some of us US garden types got our inspiration. And learning. I
certainly did, before our trip and during. And I noticed the patches of
flowers in the most unlikely places, as you mention. To think things have
slid so far in the intervening 15 years---We'll be back again eventually.
Some things must have lasted---

The slide began with the introduction of the automobile to the
masses.....prior to around the late forties to early fifties the average
'working class person' had never even been in a private car...I remember
being based in Nuneaton as a lower deck rating and was the only lower deck
guy with a car and only a couple of the 'other types' had one.......the
working class found out the pleasures of owning and driving a car and thus
was the beginning of the decline in gardening interest...at least in my
humble opinion. ("Working class"...I hate that phrase...to me it sounds
belittling or inferior in a way....is not a doctor or a lawyer etc. a
working person...albeit a higher paid one than many others but neverless a
working man....I wonder when the "common folk" are going to stop being
'common' and become just plain old citizens.)