Allan Jenkins - Plot 29 - A Memoir - LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD AND WELLCOME BOOK PRIZE

You can go about writing a memoir in two ways too. You can pen a story that plasters over the cracks, telling tales of heroism and success. Or you can break ground, dig deeper, bravely unearthing an altogether richer story. One that takes its author and its readers down a track that is by turns surprising, tender and, occasionally, unsettling.

I have never read anything quite like Plot 29 . Yes, it’s the gentle, heart-warming tale of the rescue and repair of an abandoned allotment, of protection offered to the soil by someone who understands the joys and pitfalls of growing. But contained in these pages is also an extraordinary memoir, brave, exquisitely written and utterly compelling.

Nigel Slater, 2017

When I am disturbed, even angry, gardening is a therapy. When I don’t want to talk, I turn to Plot 29 or to a wilder piece of land by a northern sea. There among seeds and trees my breathing slows, my heart rate too. My anxieties slip away.

It’s not always like that. Sometimes I just want to grow potatoes surrounded by flowers, like I did aged five with my brother one magical summer with our new mum and dad.

Plot 29 is on a London allotment site where people come together to grow. It’s just that sometimes what I am growing along with marigolds and sorrel is solace. I nurture small plants from seed like when I was small and needed someone to care for me. I offer protection from predators like when I tried to guard Christopher.

This then is my journal and childhood memoir, though my memories are fractured like my family. So I immerse myself in the plot, in nature and nurture. I lose myself in rapture. I grow fresh peas for my peace of mind.

It’s not all about healing, of course, though it’s there in abundance like beans. Sometimes it is the simple joy of growing food and flowers and sharing with people you love.

Allotment family

Mary, Howard, Annie, Bill, Jeffrey, John, Ruth

Family

Henriette: wife

Christopher, Lesley, Caron, Susan, Michael, Mandy, Adeboye, Tina: brothers and sisters

Lilian and Dudley: mum and dad

Sheila: mother

Ray: father

Billy and Doris: grandparents

Terry, Tony, Colin, Mike, Joyce: uncles and aunt

Allan, Alan, Peter: me

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