Tom Shields on … land and liberty

I AM an indignant gardener. It’s part of the indignado movement which swept Spain on May 15 last year. Citizens – mostly young – occupied city squares in protest at politicians and bankers who had condemned a whole generation to unemployment.

The indignados eventually went home to continue the movement in their own barrios. One manifestation of la lucha (the struggle) is the allotment.

From my window I can see a hort indignat (Catalan for angry garden) where the soap factory used to be.

Some neighbours complained the factory had been too noisy. But that’s what happens when you live in what was once the major centre of industry in Spain. I enjoyed the merry clatter of people at work a few yards from my balcony and they didn’t complain about my snoring.

The land was to become yet another block of flats but with the recession this has not come to pass. The Caixa Bank owns the spare ground which makes it an ideal location for plotting against the capitalist system.

The site is now populated with vegetable and herb beds. An irrigation system has been put in. A plotting shed is being built. (Are you following my plot here?) In the indignado movement, everyone has a voice. So democracy can be a lengthy process. Sometimes it seems not so much an allotment as a collective farm. But the community spirit triumphs. Potterers and political activists are in it together.

I have gone radical by planting radishes. Her Outdoors is in charge and making disparaging