The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Islanders with world at their mucky-booted feet
Allotment holders in Perth have created a wee corner of paradise within earshot of traffic – and they know their onions too Words by Morag Lindsay. Pictures by Steve Macdougall and Kris Miller
“Can I give you a marrow?”
As opening lines go, it’s definitely an attention grabber.
And when it’s delivered with the slightly urgent air of a woman who is on the brink of being entirely and possibly even catastrophically overwhelmed by all of these marrows any day now, it’s clearly an offer we can’t refuse.
We’ve just stepped through the garden gate that leads on to the Moncrieffe Island allotments. Surrounded by the Tay, the air tastes moist, mild and clean, yet we’re slap bang in the centre of Perth. Tall trees, bumblebees, birdsong and river rush muffle the traffic rumbling above our heads and here among the runner beans and marigolds the city breathes a little easier.
It’s a grower’s paradise, as Heather Hynd, bestower of marrows, can attest.
“The allotment holders like to s the island has its own microclimate,” chimes in her husband Gordo secretary of the Perth Workin Men’s Garden Association, which runs the site.
“We’re always about three weeks ahead of everyone else. Things just seems to do well down here.”
There have been allotments on Moncrieffe Island since 1896 when the Council of the Burgh of Perth – having bought the land to install filter beds so it could pump clean drinking water to the town – agreed a lease with the association. Generations of Perth citizens have grown big and strong on its bounty in the intervening 123 years. During the Second World War the island went further still in the dig for victory when nine holes belonging to the neighbouring King James VI Golf Club were given over to the cultivation of potatoes.
Today the gardens ar hom t 58 full plots, each measuring about 250 square yards, and 13 half plots, and there’s a three to four-year wait for a place.
Allotments have been having a bit of a moment, says Gordon. Twenty years ago the association couldn’t give the spaces away, now there are about 20 people on the list.
Newcomers have to prove their mettle. Don’t expect to be allocated a prime site between the centre and the Kinnoull Hill side of the island, but if you work hard, prove you’re not a quitter and make a decent fist of one of the scrappier patches under the shady trees beside the path you’ll be in with a good shout the next time there’s a reshuffle.
Access is along the metal pathway that runs beside the rail brid e over the Tay. The trains trundle by bon shakingly clo
The effect magical, says Lynne Palmer. “Once you’re on the island there’s a strong feeling that you’ve come right away from the city,” she says. “It’s as if you’re in the countryside.”
A causeway at the north-west tip means it’s possible to bring over a tractor and trailer at low tide. The plotters used to borrow a rowing boat for deliveries but the reek of manure is a devil to shift so usually they just sling whatever they need over a shoulder.
It’s like a little United Nations down here with gardeners from Mauritius, Sweden, France, England, Germany, Poland, and the only serious territorial rivalry occurring over whose tomatoes look like ripening first.“we have lots of international people
ere,” says Olga
Shelley, whose lush green corner puts her in mind of her childhood in the Brazilian jungle. “It’s fabulous.”
While the river is the allotment holders’ friend it can also be their most formidable foe.
“The problem with being next to the Tay is we do get flooded periodically,” says Kenny Orrock.
“It’s happened three times since I’ve been here but each time we seem to get back out of it.”
The worst episode in recent memory came in January 2016 when a high tide coincided with a release from the dam at Pitlochry following days of heavy rainfall. The water level is memorialised in marker pen at shoulder height on Linda Leggat’s shed door and photographs in the allotments pavilion show the destruction it left in its wake.
She recalls: “It was like it wasn’t moving. And it looked like oil, just this thick, sort of treacly, oily stuff and... you just weren’t actually quite sure what was going to happen.
“You knew the allotment was flooding but it was silent, there was no noise at all, not even the normal river noise.”
Being in the river just means sometimes the river is in the allotment is how Linda views it, and it’s a price they’re prepared to pay.
“I am so, so privileged to be fortunate enough to garden here,” she says. “It’s a very special place.”
If running six acres of allotments in the middle of a river sounds like a hallenge, imagine what it takes to aintain the manicured fairways an 18-hole golf course.
At the King James VI Golf Club,
ich occupies the larger part f the island, they swear you can tually watch the grass grow, d greenkeeper Jim Sievwright ecently added beavers to the list things that have been sent to try m. he club records date back to 4 and today the King Jimmy sts a Tom Morris designed course, string of players who have gone on o represent their country and the oniker “the friendliest golf club i Perthshire”.
Ironically there are no water features, but the 18th hole, lined with trees to the right and the Tay to the left is a notorious card-buster. A diver was persuaded to go down to the riverbed some years ago and came back up with bag after bag of golf balls.
It’s the only inland island golf course in the country and, like the allotments, it survives on a blend of teamwork and ingenuity.
The Tennent’s lorry deposits its beer barrels on the mainland for the members to roll across the footbridge and when the clubhouse chef needs supplies he uses Shanks’ pony.
When the apple trees on the Dundee Road side of the course are ready for picking, it’s the golfers who harvest them with the help of a team from the Cairn o’mhor winery at Errol, who then turn them into King Jimmy cider to be sold behind the bar.
Not being able to take the car gives people a bit more freedom at the 19th hole, the loss of which has been the death knell for other places.
“A lot of golf clubs suffered when the drink-driving laws changed,” says captain Charlie Scrim. “People used to stay on for a pint or two after their round but now nobody wants to risk it and the social side of things has suffered. The fact that you’ve never been able to bring your car here means we never had that problem.”
Maybe it’s an islander mentality, but there’s a sense of all being in this together. The Craigie Hill course is closer to Charlie’s home and the councilrun North Inch is cheaper, but they wouldn’t have that King Jimmy spirit.
And while a road bridge would make life easier in all kinds of ways, easier doesn’t always mean better.
“Sometimes I think a bridge would be nice but it would spoil the ambience ” says Charlie.
“We’ve got a thing here and i worth worki for.”