Nature

Ah, the smell of manure on an autumnal day whilst happily mulching and occasionally resting awhile to watch a robin, or chat to a passing allotment holder as you sip a steaming mug of tea. With not a care in the world beyond whether your parsnips will survive the frost.

Allotments are a wonderful distraction from the trials of life. Come rain or shine throughout the year, getting back to nature and feeling connected with the earth are some of the benefits you have when digging whilst listening to the birds sing and the slugs munch your lettuces!

Rab, John and Billy take a tea break

So why is it that someone always wants to ruin it for everyone else. Over the last two years allotment break-ins have become rife with tools being stolen and huts vandalised. It seems random and just another part of living in a big city, but why do others feel the need to destroy nature and those places used to cultivate it?

I asked some plot holders, not surprisingly they aren't happy. "Scum, it makes me p****d off!", says John at Garscube allotments where I have a plot.

My plot has been broken into but nothing taken, just a damaged fence and a mess. It makes me cross but defiant, although Billy Smith says of the plots: "It's a bad set-up, they can be up one end and you are the other, no-one can see where they're hiding, also the lights in the park show them the way."

Often it is youngsters with seemingly nothing to do; drinking, smoking and bored. They do the worst damage, setting fire to huts and throwing stones through greenhouses.

Just last week a group of teenagers were 'caught red-handed'. When confronted "‘one lassie says I'll bring my Dad, her tongue was cutting the air in two" reports Billy, not willing to repeat the language she used. John says "there's nothing they (the police) can do, except talk to the parents". "It's the work they cause after, fixing windows etc, expense" says Mick Donnelly.

And it is a shame as people work so hard to cultivate their own piece of heaven. We now have a huge padlock on the front gates as someone broke in, taking generators and stoves amongst other tools. The police find it hard to patrol such a large premises making us and other plots across Glasgow a sitting target. Plots such as Oatlands leisure gardens which were subjected to mindless vandalism in May (Evening Times 21/5/09).

But allotmenteering is still very popular. There's still 'insufficient allotments to meet demand' according to the Land and Environmental services; a fact that is backed up by the long waiting lists with many starting to share their plots thereby shortening lists, giving more security to plot holders and an added sense of community.

So despite the threat of vandalism people still want to pursue the dream of the good life and grow their own, and long may it last!