Sometimes ideas start quietly, with the feeling that something matters even if you’re not quite sure why yet.
After staying in long past lockdown, I found myself looking for somewhere to volunteer. I needed something to ease me gently out of the house and away from my very comfortable remote working. During those long days, I’d started growing cut flowers from seed through a “Grow to Give” Facebook group. I began to wonder if I could share some of the extra plants I was raising, to bring a little colour and feed the pollinators in a local green space.
I thought about the Garden of Remembrance, and the vast border that sat beneath weed suppression fabric and wood chips. It’s a peaceful and beautiful place but when you look more closely, you begin to notice its edges. Weathered benches. Weeds pushing through. Gravestones laid flat, their inscriptions fading. A space that seemed to be asking to be tended with more care.
It’s a peaceful and beautiful place — but when you look more closely, you begin to notice its edges
I asked if there was a local group of volunteers working there. There had been, at different times, but none were active now. I was disappointed, and then curious. Who was going to be looking after it now?
That was the beginning.
It wasn’t straightforward figuring out who to ask or how to begin. But some serendipity, and perhaps a touch of kismet, led me to establish Wend & Wild as a community interest company, nudged along by a quiet desire to keep growing more plants than my own garden borders could contain.
And so here we are some months later – with permission from Shropshire Council, the support of Whittington Parish Council, and a risk assessment, insurance, and a brand new (still empty) accident book, getting ready to begin.
This is the very start of our story in the Garden of Remembrance.
Welcome and thank you for reading. We’ll share more as the seasons unfold.
