My name is Samantha, and I am 39 years old. I have lived in Birmingham all my life and have always lived near to a park or green open space. I grew up in a time before mobile phones and modern technology, and so spent many hours of my childhood playing in the parks in and around the West Midlands.
In 2007 I was hospitalised and spent many months confined to a hospital bed. With the aid of a Wheelchair and Elbow Crutches I re-learned how to walk and once again was able to enjoy Birmingham’s green open spaces.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic struck I formed a Walking Group with some of my neighbours and enjoyed visiting parks and nature trails. I found the regular activity of walking not only supported my physical rehabilitation but also improved my mental wellbeing.
Since the outbreak and subsequent ‘lock-downs’, sadly our Walking Group came to an end. I instead looked for new green spaces within my immediate environment. That being my garden where I feed the many birds that visit – from small Bluetits and Long-Tailed Tits, a Robin, a family of Blackbirds, Magpies and Wood Pigeons to migrating Redwings who live up in the trees, and the Swifts, Bats and formation of Canada Geese who fly overhead.
I also enjoyed walks around the local playing field during the summer lockdown of 2020, the air felt cleaner and fresher – most likely because the reduced number of cars on the surrounding roads. And I saw many more butterflies, ladybirds and bees fluttering around than usual. A neighbour shared with me, how on one winter’s evening, she saw fox cubs on the field playing in the snow.
I do however have one regret, and that is that human-hands would stop blighting this special green space with fly-tipped rubbish, spent fireworks, empty beer bottles, cigarette ends, and discarded face masks.
I hope that in sharing my earth story, better plans can be made in the future for our parks and green spaces. Please help us plan the future of our parks and green spaces by sharing your earth story.
Samantha Vaughan MA (Art Health & Wellbeing) BA (Fine Art)
Hello, I’m Councillor John Cotton I’m Birmingham City Council Cabinet Member for Social Inclusion, Community Safety and Equalities.
I was born and brought up in Birmingham, so I suppose my first memory of a green space goes back to those early days growing up in the north of the city. With these amazing spaces on my doorstep, places like Perry Barr Park, Perry Hall Park and Red House Park.
So, my earliest memories are of hanging out with my mates in those parks, you know, building dens playing games just tremendously happy memories that have lived with me to this day.
And it does make me reflect on just how fortunate we are in Birmingham to have so many green spaces. Whether is parks, whether it’s recreation grounds whether it’s bits of woodland in neighbourhoods right across our city they are a real asset, I think, to our communities.
And when we think about what that means for cohesion and tackling inequalities in our city those green assets are absolutely vital. These are the places where communities come together, where we share in activities, where we build friendships, where we build those relationships that are so important to building a cohesive city like Birmingham.
And certainly, what we’ve seen over the last year having gone through this terrible covid pandemic the vital importance of those green spaces to helping people tackle those issues of isolation, getting some respite from what’s been a really difficult period for us all. We’ve seen at first-hand how important those spaces are and how valued they are by people right across our city.
My hope is that we continue to cherish those spaces and that we work together as a community as a council to make those spaces even better and even more valued and more enjoyed by many more people across our city. And that I really hope will be our legacy for the next generation of Birmingham young people who will take on stewardship of those parks and those green spaces.
So that’s why we want you to help us to plan the future of our parks and our green spaces in this city and you can start today by sharing your Earth Story too.
Councillor Paulette Hamilton shares her earth story memory of Handsworth Park and her request for you to help shape the future of Birmingham’s parks and open spaces.
My name is Paulette Hamilton, I’m the cabinet member for adult social care and health and public health in Birmingham.
Let me start by saying I’m a wife, I’m a mother, I’m a grandmother, I’m a carer and I’m daughter. I have a long history in this city, in fact I was born in this city, I grew up in this city, in an area called Handsworth and throughout my life I have visited many of the parks and open spaces in this city.
As a child when I was growing up my mother had five children and we had a very small garden in our house but it was our delight each week to go to the local park which was a park called Handsworth Park. We absolutely loved it and it was an area we enjoyed going to every week for exercise with my mother and with our older brothers and sisters and my younger brothers and sisters.
During this time we had some really really fantastic days where literally sometimes all we did was sit down in the park by the bandstand or go by the boats and just sit down and enjoy life and just looking around the world and, in fact, when I got married I actually took my pictures by the weeping willows at that very same park. So you can see I have got a long history.
For me when I go into a park and I’m in the open spaces I actually feel relaxed, it really helps my mental health, it helps me to think and it just helps me to see what we can do going forward, not just for me myself and my family but in the roles that I do what we do going forward in the community.
The reason I’m speaking to you today is because we are doing this new consultation about parks and I really do want you to join in. I want you to get involved, I want you to join in, I want you to help us shape the future of our city and our city parks and open spaces. Because without you we are going to be unable to take this forward in the way we want to. So please, get involved, help us shape the future of our parks in Birmingham.
If you read about Birmingham, the facts you’ll soon come across will almost definitely be:
Youngest city in Europe
More miles of canals than Venice
More Michelin star restaurants than anywhere else in the UK (outside of London)
One of the UK’s greenest cities
When I moved to Birmingham about 8 years ago, I saw 1, 2 and 3 immediately. It took me longer to see the truth in 4 but when I did, I fell completely in love with the city’s parks.
When I finally found them, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t discovered places like New Hall Valley Country Park and Perry Hall Park sooner. Now, I’m on a mission to visit all of the great parks in the city (as I write this, I’m up to number 43!) and share my journey so that others might find some new favourite green spaces too.
I’m enjoying experiencing each park differently. An early morning walk in Sutton Park (with my dog and a cup of tea) is a simple, glorious pleasure. I blame Sutton Park for my slow progress on visiting other parks, I keep finding myself back there exploring a new route or photographing a new view. It’s an incredible community asset and one I now treasure.
Parks definitely aren’t just for walking though- my first trip to Moseley Park and Pool was for an outdoor yoga class, it was a lovely warm day and the experience gave me a completely restorative feeling. Grove Park became a favourite picnic spot last summer, we’d stock up on delicious nibbles from Laghi’s Deli and spent the afternoon chatting, eating and watching the world go by. New Hall Valley Park was the first place I ran after recovering from knee surgery, I can still remember the ache and the sense of achievement. One thing is for sure, we make memories in parks.
The various restrictions put in place during 2020 have certainly amplified my love of green spaces. Despite the trauma we’ve all been through, last year is still full of happy memories of walking with friends and family. You’d normally have found us nattering over a cocktail or two in a Jewellery Quarter bar, but last year we walked & talked our way around Shire Country Park, socially distanced and with takeaway coffees from Sarehole Mill in hand.
Spending more time outdoors in the city’s parks has even inspired me to bring a little more nature into my own home. I’ve been a house-plant addict for a year or so but now I’m growing herbs too and I find myself browsing the internet for allotment plots if left to my own devices for too long.
We should count ourselves lucky. This city is full of special green spaces; full of people enjoying them, finding their own inspiration and making their own memories. The diversity of parks in Birmingham is incredible – we’re spoilt with charming local nature reserves, one of the largest urban parks in Europe, plenty of lovely neighbourhood parks & playgrounds and even magical woodland that inspired a world renowned author.
Follow my journey around the city’s parks over on Instagram, you never know, you might find a new favourite of your own to explore: www.instagram.com/alexn_e
That might be how we think stories should start but I much prefer the ones that start “You’ll never guess what happen yesterday on the allotment” or “When we arrived in the UK last year, we couldn’t believe how green it was” Because although there are some amazing and exciting stories told of going on bear hunts, tigers who came to tea or unrequited love. It is the stories that people tell each other every day that I miss. I miss hearing the chit chat and the natter apart from when a colleague phones to tell me about what happened to her today at Dawberry Fields Park “The couple who always walk round together, they waved to me today, it was lovely they recognised me” When we were out in parks all the time we got to hear everyone’s stories, now – not so much.
Oh, and there are amazing story tellers everywhere and not just in parks. You see stories know no boundaries, they flow from one person to another with no care of who is telling the story and who is listening. And if language becomes a barrier then pictures, gestures, dance, and music can fill the gaps and jump the barriers. Stories will not be contained they find a way to break through, to be seen and be heard. They can bubble out with excitement or pour out with sadness sinking to the floor with sorrow, but they will not stay untold.
Of all these common stories, this chit chat and natter, I love the ones about the earth. When you read the word earth what did you think of, the ground beneath our feet or the planet we live on? Strangely they are the same thing really. When we stand in a park the grass, the soil beneath and the rock beneath that is the planet we live on. We do not need to connect to the earth and to nature we are connected to it. We eat food, breath air, drink water and stand on our planet everyday we are totally dependent on it, most days we just don’t think about it that way.
I have hundreds of stories I could tell you, about crazy animal encounters, amazing weather phenomenon, wonders of nature, people who have shown me and taught me about the natural world and dangerous and dramatic journeys to far away lands. But I would like to hear your stories. Because my role in the Future Parks Accelerator Project in Birmingham which we call Naturally Birmingham, is to find out about you, who are you, what do you like, what don’t you like, what are your fears and hopes. What are you doing, what do wish you could do? I don’t want to present you with a form to complete, no one wants to complete a form. I wish we could just sit down with a cup of tea, or coffee or whatever you would prefer to drink, to chat about flowers and the weather and whatever it is you want to talk about, whatever story you want to tell.
The FPA project is making plans for Birmingham’s parks green spaces and the environment we live in. We want you to help us find out what those plans should include by telling us your stories. We also want to show people who make the decisions about parks, green spaces and our environment how important those green spaces are to everyone, all cultures, all ages, every single person in Birmingham, over a million people everyone of us as we arrive and as we leave we are connected to the earth and totally dependant on it. What does it mean to you? Why do you want to protect it? Do you run, walk or read in a park? Do your children play in a park, or perhaps they don’t have a park to play in? Do you meet a friend in a park, walk with your dog, ride your bike? Clear your head, fill up your senses, take a breath?
We really need your stories because this year, 2021, it’s all about you. Every story is important, and we want to hear them to help us see what we can’t see and hear what we can’t hear. Without you telling us we won’t know. We want to publish your stories as Blogs or Vlogs, so you could write them or video them. We want to record them as pod casts and host digital storytelling sessions for you to share your stories with each other. We want to gather pictures (after all a picture paint a thousand words), music, songs, dance, poetry. We just want you to change our point of view, enrich how we currently see green spaces, we need the story of parks in Birmingham to be diverse and different, it should have equity, empathy and harmony and that is hard for us to achieve without being able to weave all your stories in to the fabric that will make it.
So in a very practical way you can share your stories by sending them to us at Futureparks@bosf.org.uk you can let us know you want to share your story and we can help you capture it, you can share via social media on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Naturallybirmi1 or you will be able to join one of our online story telling sessions that will be advertised soon. We would love you to send us a blog that we can post on our Naturally Birmingham website, but you don’t need to be a blogger or a writer to share your story. Most of our recently publish blogs have been written by people who have never written a blog before. So please let us know if you want to share there will be more details coming soon and throughout January about how you can get involved.
Deborah Needle – Community Facilitator, Naturally Birmingham FPA Project
After being asked to write a blog about green spaces I got to thinking about how my enjoyment of green spaces is influenced by how safe I feel in that environment, and as with most of us it goes back to experiences as a child.
I grew up on a deprived housing estate on the east side of Birmingham, living on the top floor of a low-rise block, with my mum and 2 younger brothers. The only outdoor space was a communal, concrete drying area at the back of the block or the street out the front. We were given strict instructions by my mum that we were never to go to the “Big Park” without an adult. The “Big Park” in question was Babbs Mill park, which at the time consisted of an often-vandalised playground surrounded by concrete, some playing fields and an ominous looking lake. Even when we ventured there with my mum, or friends and their parents, it wasn’t a place that we found particularly attractive, but we could burn off some energy before going back to our flat.
Compare this to a week in the Lake District with the school when I was 10 years old. I can still remember the five-hour coach journey with 60 other children, every mountain we climbed, the dormitory we stayed in and even the fact we watched Police Academy (the first one!) at the cinema in Keswick on the Wednesday evening. I loved that holiday, and only years later did I realise that it was provided by Children in Need, and had kick started my relationship with green spaces and nature.
After reliving these memories of outdoor spaces, I started to give some thought to why they had such an impact, and why my mum didn’t think we should go to the local park, but we could travel to another part of the country without her.
It came down to one simple feeling, of being safe. The local park attracted anti-social behaviour and graffiti, the swings were always thrown over the frame so we couldn’t play on them and even as kids we knew to stay clear of anyone that looked suspicious. Whereas the Lake District was beautiful, with lots of greenery and fresh air, and even though we were often miles from anywhere there was never a fear of us coming to any harm.
Roll forward 35 years, and I love green spaces particularly as we move from Autumn into Winter and all the bright colours disappear to be replaced by bare trees waiting for the warmth of Spring. I get out for a walk every single day for my physical and mental wellbeing, and we’re lucky to have woodlands at the back of our house, so we get lots of wildlife in the garden. However, I still sometimes get drawn back to those childhood feelings, and even as an adult, won’t venture anywhere where I feel unsafe.
As part of my role I have the privilege of working with housing tenants across the city, and a common theme for many of them is again having a safe space for their children to play. I’m excited about all the collaborative projects happening across Birmingham, and being able to build on these partnerships, to establish community gardens for residents will be a fantastic achievement.
For me personally we’re not just giving people the opportunity to enjoy and explore green spaces and parks we’re helping them to create memories.
Louise Fletcher
Senior Service Manager – Tenant Engagement, BCC Housing Management
Mentoring in Green Spaces – Reflections from a Mentor
I’ve been a Health Mentor with Evolve for over a year, and I love the holistic view that we take of children’s health. We include not just physical health, but mental and emotional wellbeing too. One of the most important aspects of physical and mental health, for me, has always been spending time outside in nature.
I grew up on the Malvern Hills, so my childhood memories include wading through streams, building rope swings, rolling down slopes and looking out over the huge expanse of Worcestershire from the top of my own magical mountains.
Not every child is so lucky, and some children will barely go into a green space at all. I was really keen to get involved with the Future Parks project recently, to engage children and families with the many green spaces that are all around us in industrial Birmingham.
My first introduction to mentoring outside was a visit to Cofton Park, which is just down the road from me. I had never been there before, only driven past. The tree nursery, pine woodland and lush open fields definitely opened my eyes to this lovely, surprisingly large park. I was led round by two park rangers, who helped me with the important details such as risk assessments and conducting pre-visits to a site before starting a mentoring session.
Being on the South side of the city, I had never been to Sutton Park, which was where I decided to conduct my first outdoor mentoring session. Following the rangers’ advice, I contacted the Sutton Park rangers to take a tour of the park and conduct a risk assessment. To say I was blown away would be an understatement – everything was fantastically beautiful at the turn of Autumn, with so many habitats and so much wildlife to discover.
My mentee loves horses, so I identified the best spot for finding the Exmoor ponies with the help of the ranger. He told me their history and highlighted the complicated relationship between animals and conservation, especially when animals like the Exmoor pony are introduced or re-introduced into an area. It was fascinating to hear about how the park is managed, how much work goes into it and how varied the ranger’s role is.
Next, it was time to finally take my mentee out into a green space for the first time. They showed me the best way to the park, being local, and I let them navigate. We got lost in a muddy bog, took some new paths together and talked about everything, from life goals to Christmas plans. I felt like they were more chatty than usual, probably relaxed by walking alongside instead of sitting opposite me.
Sadly, we didn’t see any ponies that day. We watched the tufted ducks diving in the lake, and admired the swans. Strangely twisted trees caught my mentee’s eye, and we took pictures. I showed them the fluffy insides of certain grasses, just like my grandfather had shown me. We were both calm, peaceful and spoke freely under the wide, grey sky. At one point, my mentee said, ‘I could stay here forever.’
Walking back, we talked about what plants we had seen, how some were edible, which led on to a conversation about their diet. We agreed how tired we were walking back up the hill, which sparked some ideas for exercise – in fact, we had done over 11,000 steps!
Overall, this was a wonderful new way to engage with my mentee, learn more about Birmingham’s green spaces and reconnect with my own love for nature.
Ellie Wilde, Health Mentor at Evolve: a Social Impact Company
Nature is our biggest ally and our greatest inspiration.
Sir David Attenborough
Since starting my role with FPA back in April 2020 I have found myself looking up more – not only looking up on walks to enjoy the surrounding but using the internet to look up what plants grow when, why trees turn orange and yellow in the autumn and how to grown your own fruit and vegetables (the novice guide).
With a maiden name of Green it’s no wonder my dad and grandma are such avid gardeners, during my teenage years, I would spend a lot of time watching both dad and grandma in the garden, planting, watering and weeding however at the time nothing was more important to me than sunbathing or “revising” outside….but now I’m older and have a garden of my own – I find myself regularly asking them both for advice on what to plant when, where to plant certain plants and how to best look after them. I am lucky enough to have had my own garden for a year now and I am super chuffed that I have been able to grown my own basil, chives, tomatoes, cucumbers, chilli’s. I’m hoping for courgettes and purple potatoes next year!
I’ve been working from home since 18th March and with the other half continuing to work as normal, being home alone has meant the buzz I get from regularly seeing people has been sorely missed and I now find myself singing along to the radio in between Zoom, Teams and Skype calls. Before on lunch breaks it was a scroll through the phone but now I go for walk around the local park and regularly pass the same dog walkers. It’s great to know that the park isn’t just used a pass through as part of a commute or a stop off in the playground after school, but used by all ages in the middle of the day whatever the weather. I’ve always enjoyed being outside, enjoying the fresh air, as a way of relaxing but since lockdown being outside is so much more – a place to socialise, relax, exercise and appreciate all of the beautiful thing’s nature gives us.
If you’d asked me 10 years ago where I’d be working now, I certainly wouldn’t have thought it would be as part of the FPA team. However, I consider myself so lucky to be working on this fantastic project, supporting the initiatives and really bringing the green sector alive to those that are yet to explore what it has to offer. During the summer I met with the Community Environmental Trust to meet the young people that are actively involved with their local green space and I was blown away by how passionately and enthusiastically they were talking about the green space. It has been fantastic, to talk with so many people working in the green sector and understand why they love green spaces but also why they love their jobs – I never knew how vast the green sector was, along with all of the different jobs involved. I’ve found the green roofing work fascinating and I’m sure there are still plenty for me to learn about.
Through the Skills Showcase – we really have an opportunity for education establishments, training provides and businesses to come together and help plant the seed for those young people considering the green sector as a career choice. So let’s use nature as a our ally and use it to inspire those in to the wonderful world of green jobs.
Whatever the next few months hold for us, I will be fully embracing the winter – it’s my favourite time to get out and walk.
It will be fresh outside and my cheeks will be rosy, the ground beneath my boots will be crisp but I will be wrapped up warm and cosy.
The holly berries shine bright red and the cobwebs glitter ice white, as we put up the fairy lights at home, the stars fill the winter night.
The animals will settle in their homemade beds and I will light the fire and pour a warming glass of red.
The sky above will hold a winter shimmer and as l finish the Christmas chocolates and New Year approaches – I think to myself, I best get walking again to get slimmer!
Hello, I am so excited to be writing this blog – I have never done a blog before and don’t really know where to start! So I am going to reminisce – My earliest memory of green space as a young girl stemmed from brook jumping in Woodgate Valley Country Park with my older sister as we made our way to visit grandad who lived in Quinton, this was much fun. We would find the widest part of the stream and take it in turns jumping, I don’t remember falling in so I must have been good! Other adventures were swinging on a rope swing over the brook to jump to other side.
Some parts of the valley were overgrown and we used to get stung walking in the nettles and had to find dock leaves Broad-leaved dock | The Wildlife Trusts to rub on our stings. We would pick the rose bush “buds” (rosehips) and tease each other with the “itching powder” (little irritant hairs) inside the hips by chasing and catching each other and sprinkling the itching power down the back of t shirts and giving a pat on the back (very naughty).
Growing into my teenage years parks played a big part of my life as these were the places we would ‘hang around’ meeting friends, playing games of football or rounders, tree climbing (apple picking) and racing on the BMX track in Senneleys Park.
I remember when Cannon Hill park (late 80’s) used to have the Radio 1 Roadshows, this is where I met Mick Reid (DJ) who was playing tennis and there was always a fair.
Being in this role in the Naturally Birmingham project and thinking about green space has really reminded me what a great time I had growing up and I feel lucky to be able to reconnect. Now I am a regular National Trust visitor and enjoy the outdoors with the family, although we are in unprecedented times it is important to be able to get outdoors I do a regular 20 minute walk each morning before starting my day working from home getting ready for the day ahead.
I hope some of my memories have helped you to think about your years growing up and what green space means to you, parks need people and people need parks.
Naturally Birmingham Future Parks Project 