England has a green belt and Singapore has a green building programme

In London we are constantly fighting to protect the Green Belt designed to  protect greenery and prevent urban sprawl.

I met a woman whose job is planning greenery on estates and now up the sides of buildings and on their rooftops in Singapore.

She showed me this tree planted by Lee Kuan Yew. The plaque, inset in a tree trunk, shows an urban building surrounded by the colour green. The text reads:

TANJONG PAGAR TOWN COUNCIL

CLEAN AND GREEN SINGAPORE

This tree

was planted by

MR LEE KUAN YEW

MP for Tanjong Pagar GRC

November 2011

The trees you see planted along streets are not chosen at random.

I was impressed by the fact that I learned to much from this little side trip, walking from the Buena Vista Community Centre (abbreviated to CC). I had forgotten that Lee Kuan Yew actually was a minister with an area constituency, not just bypassing local areas and instantly made into a high-powered minister responsible for the whole country.

My friend is a real enthusiast. In addition to taking three of us on a detour to see this tree, she pointed out assorted buildings as we passed, telling us about the walls of greenery and the trees along the avenues and the trees on rooftops.

I am curious to know how the greenery survives on buildings, especially those walls of greenery. How come they don't destroy the building's fascia, the way ivy destroys the brickwork of buildings in England. She says you have the greenery in front of the wall, growing on a trellis in front. Then you have to spend money on watering systems.

But how do you prevent trees on rooftops putting down roots and destroying the rooftop and growing out of control like the 'seed' planted by Jack in the beanstalk? You place the roots in a container. Like Bonsai. No, she says. I have not understood. Never mind, I am getting the idea. Like all the gardens in Singapore, a great deal of thought, planning and maintenance is required. I recall the famous quotation, that 'gardens are not made by saying,"oh how beautiful" and sitting in the shade'.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Harrow: your chance to hear news and air your views. As Churchill said, We will fight ...

Local free newspapers and Optima magazine have carried advertisements telling readers where they can go to voice their views and hear what is happening.

What will happen to Harrow?

Proposals include moving the civic centre.

White friars Glass window in Harrow civic centre.

I hope they will keep:

1 The Whitefriars Glass windows showing Churchill who went to school in Harrow and the history of the area
2 The plaque with the quotation from Anne Frank, from the semi-circular Council chamber, with its banners showing the history of Harrow.
3 The portraits of previous mayors.
4 The pictures of famous people and events in Harrow: Just a few of them: Byron at school in Harrow.

5 Meeting rooms.
6 Ample parking space. (We need more. Not less.)
7 The marquetry picture of famous people from Harrow: Roger Bannister and the 4 minute mile; magistrate Gilbert who wrote the words for Gilbert and Sullivan operas 'I've got a little list'; 'A policeman's lot is not a happy one'. Not now it isn't. Leefe Robinson, local hero from WWI.
8 The items donated by organisations of Harrow now displayed in the glass case in the mayor's parlour - all sorts of unusual and intriguing items from different races and religions.
9 The mace.

10 The library with computers.

Ah, you might say, we don't need libraries because everybody has a computer nowadays. Yes, and what happens when your computer crashes? Even if it's backed up weekly, a real headache when it's with this week's diary, your tax return, the work you were sent ...
Or you forgot your password and your new passwords are sent to your phone and your phone's been stolen.

A kaput computer.

You can't use another computer because the passwords are in the one that's in for repair. Apple takes a week to give you a Genius bar appointment. Microsoft is not compatible with Apple so two members of the same family can't share computers.

What will happen between the time when one building is demolished and the other one built? Will we have no offices? Or will be be paying for both simultaneously? Will they be miles away?

By the time they finish a new building, we will probably need an overflow into the existing building.

What did Churchill say? Something about: We will fight them in the shopping centres, we will fight them by the beech trees, we will fight them in the newspapers, we will never give up.

They are asking what we want? They know what we want. Campaigns and letters have appeared in all the local papers.
1 We want the money they propose to spend on a new building to be spent first on
2 Keeping open the libraries
3 And the police stations
4 Which should also take in lost property)
5 Saving the (Pinner Park) farm and farm animals providing milk.
6 Not closing down nearest hospital A and E making people in an emergency having to spend time and money travelling a long way to an A & E, too far to ask the neighbours to take them, then ending up in a hospital miles from home, plus wasting ambulance time

Swimming Pool Upgrade
7 Upgrade the white walled swimming pool. which has scarcely enough room for two people to walk around it without knocking into the water somebody coming the other way. No room for granny to sit reading a newspaper whilst watching the grandchildren. Add some colour and greenery. It is less welcoming than most people's bathroom at home. It should be overcooked by a caffe to provide extra eyes to supplement lifeguards and encourage people to want to use the pool.

They say we need housing but they are selling off a farm, in green belt land, which should be preserved, to provide big houses for the rich.
As for building many more small houses, we don't want historic Harrow turned into a city of skyscrapers.
In large countries like the USA and France you can give people land on which they can grow their own food, grow crops to make clothes and shoes, be self-sufficient.
How long can you continue putting people in skyscrapers, covering the green land, erasing farms and orchards, importing food?
Families having more than two children means a constant demand for more schools, homes, transport, hospitals.

But we are closing down hospitals, and cramming in more people who cannot be fed on the land. It's madness. People are living longer, the birthrate is going up, families of immigrants are arriving with five children, having up to ten, men with two or more wives. Also home grown single mothers with children from two or three mean. Cities are expanding and our own orchards have disappeared.
Just one bad summer can wipe out crops in any country.

Then what. The Irish know what happened in the potato famine.  The French farmers learned that to beat a bad harvest of one food, you need grow several crops of different sorts which harvest at different times of year. So the spring hail doesn't ruin your entire crop because you have more food harvested in summer.

We should copy Shanghai and have one child per family. And dig for victory like in WWII.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

The old Harrow with trees. Pinner Church. 

The new concrete jungle.

Photos by Angela Lansbury.

So where are we meeting? Now that the library has been closed, and the Arts Centre is repeatedly under threat, and rooms are too expensive for the local writers association to meet more than once a month, we have to meet in a supermarket.

You couldn't make it up.

Above photos by Angela Lansbury.
Angela Lansbury (member of Harrow Writers' Circle), travel writer and photographer, author, speaker.

PS I am a great supporter of many of our councillors. They all have different opinions. I just wanted to make my views heard for the benefit of everybody who lives in or works in or visits Harrow.

Harrow is becoming oppressive with huge windowless walls rising from the pavement. 

Drive over the bridge over Harrow and Wealdstone station outside the civic centre. Skyscrapers are built so close to the road, that the poor little balconies must be filled with fumes. The windows view traffic and hear noise. 

I see the adverts for new flats in the area. I am very glad that people in flats are being offered balconies. Otherwise you are in a prison cell all summer, and in the evenings. With global warming, and people used to living in flats in hot countries, or coming from houses with gardens, more people expect balconies. The youngsters and yuppies want to sit on balconies for evening drinks and meals. The poor and the pensioners want their washing on the balconies (discreetly hidden by frosted glass or low bamboo fencing).

The top deck of a bus would look at your sunbathing, and the sheer drop doesn't allow any way to climb out or even wave in an emergency, though the next block's balconies overhang so hazardously they look like they could drop a flower pot onto passing traffic.

Regarding Harrow Arts Centre and the Headstone Lane Museum:
Public Open Events
Sat Dec 5th at Morrisons, Hatch End, 3-5 pm
Wed Dec 9th 6-8pm Harrow Arts Centre
Thurs Dec 10 Harrow Arts Centre 10am-1 pm and 3-5 pm.

www.culturalondonuk
To me and those I have spoken to the idea of a cinema and enlarged theatre sounds good. However, the glass stuck on the front of a brick buildings obscuring them and in a totally different style looks odd.
You can contact them to make your views known:
http://www.culturalondon.uk/contact-us/

Angela Lansbury travel writer and photographer, author, speaker. Follow me here. Follow me on Facebook. Link to mean LinkedIn. See me on YouTube. Meet me at speakers or writers meetings in England and Singapore. Browse or buy my books on Amazon and Lulu.com

See Suburban Trees In London

   Spring is the season for strolling the city, London, Washington DC, and all over England and the USA. Start, in the south, as the warm weather creeps north through the spring season. Check the weather, often on the back page of your national newspaper.
   You can walk along Hadrian's Wall which was built by the Romans to keep England and Scotland separate and prevent raids. From Easter time many Roman museums will be open.
    National Trust properties will be open to the public and you can choose a walk around the park of a stately home, starting and ending at the gift shop and tea room. Or choose an RSPB site and do some bird-watching.
   Pick a railway station in  a shopping centre and look for a walk from the station to another station or in a loop and back. London libraries have leaflets on local walks. Many walks are signposted.
   You can walk along the Thames river. Pick landmarks, statues to see and photograph, bridges to cross. A place such as a pub or tea room where you can end up for tea. For example, the Tate Gallery and the bouncing bridge.
   Take London's underground railway out to the suburbs. Go South to Kew Gardens (entry charge).

    London is surrounded by the 'Green Belt'. For example, going north, Pinner has a historic high street with the Victory pub turned into a restaurant. The Park has a pond and the Heath Robinson Museum where you can see the cartoonists drawings. Walk uphill from Harrow-on-the-hill on the Metropolitan Line to see the famous school.
   Over in Ruislip there's Ruislip lido. Walk around the Lido admiring the swans. Finish with a reasonably priced lunch or dinner in the Water's Edge carvery.
   Take the Euston line North towards Watford and get off at Hatch End station. A map on the station wall shows how you can walk along pre-historic Grim's Dyke via Grimsdyke Hotel, home of Gilbert who wrote the words for Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. In just one street, in Hatch End, I took these photos of trees in the gardens and along the verges.

Magnificent magnolia trees in bloom in white or the prized pink.

Beautiful pink magnolia blossom against a blue sky.

Looking up, even the white clouds and telephone polls and rooftops cannot spoil the view of the wonderful pink petals.

Delicate pink blossoms on prunus (cherry tree family).

Grey clouds warn of rain.

But trees like rain.

Silver birch with its elegant slim silver-white trunk and delicate branches.

-ends-

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