Allotment

The promise of a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow is a very tantalising thing particularly as the whole spectrum of gossamer continually evades being followed or captured and will not therefore relinquish the prize-ever.

Such must have been the over-riding feeling for a man that I was asked to meet some years ago in order to discuss what was, in hushed tones, a potentially lucrative property deal.

Of course, my experience in the property market and in business generally has firmly taught me that if something sounds too good to be true then it surely is. However, that does not discourage many from pursuing it anyway just in case it does happen to be the deal of a lifetime.

I drove to the home of this particular man. It was a small, modest terraced house amongst many similar forming part of the 1930's suburban expansion of Hull. The garden was nicely kept, neatly cut square of lawn, dug over and planted borders, small lavender hedge leading up to the front door. The net curtain in the bay window twitched as I touched the gate and the man was waiting on the doorstep by the time I had negotiated the short tarmac pathway through the forecourt. He confirmed his identity to me and as he did not drive, "never had" he proudly stated, we set off in my car.

No specific direction was indicated. He glanced nervously around as though fearful we were being tailed. Just past the Boothferry Park football ground of Hull City some 2 miles away from his house I was instructed to pull over and park up. He had some difficulty alighting from the car with stiff joints and I noticed his rather scruffy long black coat, pin stripe trousers with turn-ups and good pair of sensible shoes. He could have been, in age, anywhere between 55 and 80. Stubble on chin and cheeks, thinning grey hair and prominent red veins on his face and forehead.

I followed him along the main footpath past a few semi detached houses and then we darted down a narrow, unmade footway, chain link fenced between the last pair of houses and the start of a longer terraced block. The three foot wide path soon opened out into a large open space dotted with small sheds and greenhouses, bamboo canes standing like slalom gates and a faint whitish mist of a bonfire.

The land,  private allotment land was, by my rough reckoning about two acres in size. I had not known of it's existence as it nestled in the centre of a built up suburban area and with the footway the only access point. Quite an oasis of production with well tended vegetable plots and soft fruit bushes and even some exotic specimens of grapes amongst what had once been intact  glasshouses.

The man explained that he had been approached by someone who had expressed an interest in buying some bits of the allotments. There was an offer on the table of a few hundred pounds for each designated allotment plot and this, I calculated did add up to a fairly tidy figure if extrapolated across the whole parcel of land.

However, I was aware of the tricks and deceptions of the Site Finders and Land Buyers who regularly exploited the ignorance and poverty of many in similar situations in order to assemble a good body of land which could, for the initial investment of pennies be sold to a National House Builder for hundreds of thousands of pounds. Some complicated assembly projects could take a decade of subterfuge, confidentiality clauses and the taking out of options as a calculated gamble of getting Planning Permission for the highest possible value use. In most cases the waiting game was well worth it.

I looked around. This one would test the patience and nerve of the Site Finder. There were upwards of 30 sheds so multiple owners and interests to consider. I asked the man which bit belonged to him. His expansive arm movement caught me by surprise. He was indicating that he was monarch of all we could see.

It appears that he had worked the allotment for the last 30 years amongst a longstanding community of like minded hortculturalists and veg growers. They had become firm pals wiling away many hours just yards away from each other and enjoying the quiet communion of a small patch they could call their own. The open space was a cloister away from their small and densely packed terraced houses where only weeds could grow throught the forecourt and yard concrete. Their numbers, of course dwindled progressively every year either through death or the invitation to live with family elsewhere in the country. When an allotment strip was surrendered my contact willingly took it over, lock, stock and wheel-barrow for a reasonable financial consideration. On an hours, days , weeks and years worked basis the remuneration to his buddies was pitiful, but faced with possible expenses for relocation  or funeral charges the recipients themselves or their widows were grateful.

So, it transpired that my man owned two acres of potentially prime development land. It would take outside money to buy a house on the road frontage for demolition to create a suitable access road but otherwise everything seemed to indicate that the rainbow's end was all pervading in this very spot. I told the man that he should gather together all the paperwork and the Legal Title documents and keep them safe. "The What?" he said. He owned the land in its entirety but had no actual proof to that effect. All transactions had been strictly for cash and on a handshake where the beneficiary of his generosity was, of course, alive or with his immediate dependants. "Would that be a problem?" he asked.

Within eighteen months a large National House Builder had developed the site with tightly packed detached executive boxes along the length of a winding cul de sac road.

I had lost touch with the man shortly after breaking the news to him that his expectations of a windfall would probably not materialise. He was understandably devastated by my news. The sad part was that he had never even considered any added value to his own site assembly from development. He just loved the thought of owning all that he saw and could walk around in the course of his allotment working day. The arrival of the Site Finder had in fact been as unwelcome as discovering black fly infestation on his cultivated roses or the signs of a nightime feasting by snails on his delicate lettuce plants.

I never saw or heard of him again but on passing, a couple of years later, the former Show House, the best plot of the whole development at the entrance to the housing estate I noticed the vaguely familiar sight of a very neat square of lawn, freshly dug borders with a very good stock of hardy perennials and a trimmed lavender hedge leading up to the front door.

Reproduced from 2011 but dedicated  to my daughter, Hannah, aged 23 years today and doing her final year dissertation on the subject of allotments