So What?

Burngreave Cemetery Apple Day #BAD11 #FOOD

Today is the Blog Action Day and the theme this year is World Food Day. 

It was also Apple Day in Burngreave Cemetery.  And so that is my food theme: apples. 

Let me start with Burngreave Cemetery.  It is a fantastic open space in Burngreave (which is the name of the ward, it's really Pitsmoor) in Sheffield, England.  It has an interesting history and its friends meet most Sundays in the chapel (right), which they are turning into a museum about the cemetery and the surrounding area.

This Sunday was their third apple day.  It's never been a big event.  It is an opportunity for people to bring their apples to swop for other's apples.  And there is a small display of local apples.  By local I mean grown in Sheffield.  I copied the list of apple varieties present and here it is:

In the photo, starting on the left of the back row:

Ribston Pippin

Pitmaston Pineapple

Wyken Pippin

Cider Apples (Kingston Black and Dabinet)

Golden Spire 1850

Lane's Prince Albert

Golden Noble

Newton Wonder

Cockpit

Peasgood Nonesuch

Keswick Codlin

On the front row there's a quince and a medlar and then left to right:

Worcester Pearmain 1873

Epicure

Ellison's Orange 1911

Beeley Pippin

Margil

Egremont Russet

Adams Pearmain

Orlean's Reinette 1773

Ashmead's Kemel

I've deliberately listed these at the risk of being dull because there is a point to be made.  How many of you heard of?  You will know the names of Cox's Orange Pippin, Braeburn, Spartan, Russet (perhaps) and of course the all too dreadful Golden Delicious (frequently neither), Granny Smiths and of course the Pink Lady that inevitably tastes of sweetened polystyrene.

Most of these varieties are not British apples and have been developed because they provide a consistent product for the benefit of the supermarkets.  The supermarkets are the reason so many orchards are closing and rare varieties being lost.  Today it's the odd tree in a garden or allotment that preserves these varieties.

This year I am told has been good for apples.  (So, good they could afford to squash them, right.)  I've been given more than usual and even those with all too familiar names have more flavour than anything I normally eat from supermarkets.

Pitsmoor is notable for its specialist shops, particularly grocers selling foods from all over the world.  On the last day of this month, one of the largest branches of Tesco in Europe is to open on our doorstep.  We're hoping the little shops, with the genuine choice they offer, will not be forced to close through competition. 

If we're not careful we'll lose more than our apples.

Related articles

• Burngreave Cemetery, Sheffield , Yorkshire - Free Headstone Images (ancestrycentral.wordpress.com)
• Apple day: A celebration of core values (telegraph.co.uk)

Burngreave Multifaith Chapel and Library Tree Plaque

Last year on 15 November the Multifaith Chapel and Library, at the top of Spital Hill in Burngreave (or Pitsmoor), planted a Stone Pine.  The first multifaith tree in Sheffield.  Today we unveiled a plaque to mark, as the planting did last year, the start of interfaith week.  Here are some pictures.  First, here's a couple of the tree:

The plaque was unveiled by Revd Inderjit Bhogal, Chief Executive of the Yorkshire and Humber Faiths Forum and a past President of Methodist Conference, seen here with Cllr Alan Law JP, the Right Worshipful the Lord Mayor of Sheffield and Abdool Gooljar of the Islamic Society of Great Britain.

Related articles

• Building a Learning Community (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)

Idolatry 22: Does Father Christmas Matter?

In this post I want to return to the figure of Father Christmas and to ask whether our idolatry matters. 

Who believes in Father Christmas?

Father Christmas is the god of consumerism.  This god is deeply rooted in Christian and pagan imagery.  Although it cut loose a long time ago, it still retains those associations, especially in the image of Santa Claus.

Not all people who believe in consumerism are obvious worshipers of this god.  People from non-Christian religious traditions, who don't celebrate Christmas, are probably not influenced so much.  Consumerism is an ideology which presumably influences a far wider group of people than Western Americans and Europeans.  However, this is the culture that has generated both consumerism and the image of Father Christmas and at some level image and practice reinforce each other.

My guess is the United States and UK are the most excessive users of the Father Christmas cult.  Other countries in Europe seem to be less excessive in their observance perhaps because in some countries traditional observances have withstood the consumerist onslaught better than Britain and America.

It is perhaps not too surprising that the last two states to be world powers, now in decline, feel the strongest need to have an annual season of excess. 

What drives the cult?

I have already pointed out it is the market.  A bad Christmas (by which they mean the weeks leading up to Christmas) can be very damaging for retailers and the economy.  When did we last have a bad Christmas? 

Very early on, we are told prospects are gloomy. Then, as Christmas approaches, at some point everything turns around.  At some point the magic of Father Christmas kicks in and everyone realises that (a) we might as well go into debt to have a good Christmas, and (b) if we don't get out there soon everything will be gone from the shops.

So, the economy gets an annual jump start and people are encouraged to continue spending whether or not they have money to spend for another year.

Does any of this matter?

As I write, the Copenhagen climate change talks are happening.  Where is the leadership?  I have never known any time when there has been a political will to reduce sales.  The idea we might have to reduce our consumption and make do with less is unthinkable. 

It is a disaster that this summit took place during the Christmas season.  There is no way the interests in consumerism are likely to loosen their grip on the world's resources at the best of times.  To choose the time of year when their spirituality is celebrated and strongest is a bad omen.

It seems we have created a world for ourselves we cannot escape from.  It is impossible to imagine a world with shortages.  (With the exception of course of much of the past and most of what we call the developing world.)

The waste, the pollution, the exploitation of the planet are all consequences of our inability to stop consuming.  We bolster this with whimsical stories and false bonhomie.  The problem is we do not know how to stop.

How to get out of Pitsmoor

When I was in the sixth form, between 1970 and 1972, I joined the Conservation Society.  This was one of the earliest environmental groups, which gave way to later organisations such as Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the Green Party.

At the time the big name in environmental groups was York 2000, a group set up to oppose the York ring road and its country-wide offshoot Transport 2000. 

This provided the inspiration for one of Sheffield Conservation Society's campaigns; opposition to the building of a dual carriageway across Wicker to link up the ring road in Sheffield.  I think our campaign must have been a success.  The plans for a dual carriageway cutting across Wicker on stilts were never implemented. 

We might have been better off with the stilts as now not one but two dual carriageways cut across Wicker.  They encircle the main access routes into Pitsmoor.  If anyone wanted to cut Pitsmoor off from the city centre they could not have found a better way to do it.  Access to Pitsmoor is now an obstacle course on foot or by car. 

Any attempt to explain access by car is doomed to failure.  I know how to do it and usually navigate the labyrinthine route without getting lost too many times.  On foot it is a daunting prospect of seemingly endless streams of speeding traffic.  Whilst the basic principle of the dual carriageway is that cars travel from one direction, these junctions are so complex it takes great presence of mind to remember where to look.  A matter further complicated by frequent malfunctions in the crossing lights.

The first photo shows the carriageway between the Wicker Arches and Spital Hill, see photo and post here to get orientated.  Despite being a dual carriageway, there are three sets of lanes for the pedestrian to navigate as well as the junction with Spital Hill, which used to be the main route through the area.

The second photo is the actual ring road.

Despite its run down nature, Wicker  was designed on a grand scale and was a fitting entrance to Pitsmoor and the Lower Don Valley.  Recently several new curry houses have opened or been refurbished with insurance following the floods in 2007.  They are now cut off from Pitsmoor.  The city had the sense to ditch these ridiculous and unnecessary plans in the seventies, why on earth were these roads built 30 years later?