DIARY
DAVID WELCH The Royal Parks were established as hunting forests by Henry VIII, who was more important as an urban planner than he gets credit for — his acquisitions still determine the patterns of development and movement in central London 450 years after his death. We still have 800 deer in the parks. They are mostly at Richmond and Bushy but there are some at Green- wich as well. They are descendants of ones King Henry missed. This month they are mating, and in the spring a new generation of calves and fawns will be born in the shel- ter of the bracken which still flourishes on the poor thin soil of the parks. Prudent visi- tors to Richmond and Bushy Parks this week and next will keep well away from the strutting, bellowing, powerful, well-armed, macho stags. They should, if they treasure them, keep their dogs away too, and for charity's sake they should keep them under control in the spring.
Iwalked from St James's Park through Green Park to Hyde Park this morning; it is one of the best urban walks in the world, and is a good one for studying the sociology of the park bench. I passed 38 of them .on the way, and every one was occupied though there is a touch of winter in the air and it is too cold to sit for long. They are unsung tourist facilities, and the humblest Manifestations of a big industry. I started out near Horse Guards Parade where the seats were fully occupied by chattering school parties engaged in a mass ritual courtship. They value the backs and arms as much as the seats themselves, though if they come back in a couple of years' time they will abandon the seats altogether and migrate to the grass. The gardeners and their mowing machines are the agents of romance, not to say procreation. I paused for a moment to wonder at the man who comes to the same spot in St James's Park every day and, once there, lines up the local sparrows and pigeons in a disciplined row on the back of a bench. He then feeds them Mie by one. He even finds time to entertain ?them, which cluster on his outstretched and and settle on his hat. He is the most Photographed philanthropist in the king- rim. He is engrossed in his own happiness ,and is not there for show, but by now he is rhe wonder of Tokyo and the star of holi- a_ay videos in every major American city. t ourists come to London for small plea- sres as well as big ones, and his little avian Teatre is one of them. Further on, beyond til,e cake house, the benches have the u.liggest concentration of perfect strangers s ,!1 tIng together outside the Central Line. "le common bond between them is the Pushy assertiveness of the geese and peli- tans, and the busy ducks on the lake. Under their feet is a self-renewing supply of phosphate-rich manure We clean it away every day, but the geese collectively extrude a yard of it, fresh, every six and a half min- utes, throughout the hours of daylight. It is what is meant by perpetual motion. But the pelicans are the stars here. They wander amongst their admiring audience snaffling titbits, though they don't need them — they are fed with fish every afternoon, another free show. Today one had hopped up onto a bench, occupied half of it, wrestled with a visitor for possession of her handbag, and entertained a crowd of laughing spectators. But once into Hyde Park the pace is calmer and the benches have a different rhythm and nature of use. Here they are occupied as much by Londoners as by tourists; for meeting, thinking, reading, eating, courting, talking, and for gossip, relaxation, reflec- tion, debate. I wish they were designed with greater deference to the eccentricities of human anatomy; then they might be used for rest as well.
'This cone's hotline was a godsend.' 0 ii my walk I was twice asked by groups of visitors how they might get to the Albert Memorial. At one time when it was covered with a giant plastic condom it was easy to pick out, but now a slender spire is all that can be seen of it across the Serpen- tine. It is one of the nation's great artefacts, made with Gothic bravura, and it has been restored by English Heritage to the full glory of its erstwhile splendour — though splendour is an insufficient word for a mon- ument of such glittering effulgence. The Prince has a triple coating of gold leaf. Yes- terday afternoon I saw him reflecting the light from the low winter sun, and I stopped, with a group of dazzled visitors, to gaze at him. They held their hands up to the statue and their palms shone back, golden. He has become a beacon. I expect that poster designers from the British Tourist Authority are already studying his pensive, shining figure and it cannot be long before he features on a T-shirt. As a tourist attrac- tion he is in the five-star class. As a proud, towering monument to Victorian self-confi- dence he is on his own. And as a stimulus to the price of gold — up to $293.25 an ounce since his unveiling — he is an encourage- ment to currency dealers everywhere, and has made the metal fashionable again.
Ar earnest caller suggested to me today that we should stop growing such fripperies as wallflowers, tulips and pelargoniums in the park flowerbeds, and replace them with decorative plants that could later be used as food. It would be possible, I told him. The flowers of nasturtiums and pot marigolds are edible, and determined people can con- sume ornamental kale. There are also con- ventional vegetables that are modestly deco- rative: beetroot, Swiss chard, the new vari- eties of lettuce with frilly red leaves and lit- tle flavour, beans with bright flowers and colourful pods, the dainty foliage of carrots, and, to give zip, a selection of the better- looking herbs. To make lasagne there are courgettes with gaudy yellow flowers, the deep violet-coloured, smooth-cheeked fruits of aubergine, tomatoes in season, rosemary. A flowerbed could effortlessly disturb even an iron digestion. But flowers are tourist attractions too, they need swagger not suc- culence to do their job, and harvesting is always a race against the elements. In a park the forces of urban caprice are ranged against it: dogs, geese, footballs, pigeons, Frisbees. Then there is the new urban plague — rabbits; there are an estimated half million of them in greater London alone. Who in the presence of such abun- dance, I enquired, needs to eat a flowerbed?
The author is the chief executive of the Royal Parks.
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