Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Whatever happened to Swampy?

Shot with Olympus E510
Swampy was a briefly notorious "eco-warrior" whose nickname lives on as shorthand for the sort of person prepared to live in a tree for what they believe in.

A few years back, in 1994, Wanstead briefly appeared in the limelight when a new road was being built. Part of the plans saw the destruction of an old chestnut tree and a large number of people got sanctimonious and made our lives more difficult for a while because they believed that the road was bad and that they should stop it happening.

Well, several years later and the dust has settled. Regular visitors here will know I am far from wedded to the car, but I can report that this was a good road. The traffic that used to bring our streets to a standstill is now diverted, it's safe to cross the road at any time and there are still a large number of old sweet chestnuts, including these, standing guard over our green. So, folks, just because you are sanctimonious doesn't mean you are right.

Curiously, the remains of the tree that caused all the fuss are still on the green. You can see a geniune english oak tree here

posted by Ham at 00:05 -- Comments here: 3

Comments on "Whatever happened to Swampy?"

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (10:50) : 

Swampy is alive and well and drinks cider and mead in great quantities. I was talking to him at the Peterborough beer festival in August. And he's married now, well almost.

 

Blogger Ham said ... (15:17) : 

Oh good, pleased to hear that. No matter that I thought these people were misguided (and time has proved me right) I'd much rather peopleprotested about things they feel stroongly about. It seemed for a while that all students were prepared to demonstrate about was pensions, which is sad.

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (23:14) : 

I just heard on the news last night that a 10 acre field of corn puts off 400 tons of oxygen a day. I believe that was it.

I think trees are right up there with the best fields of corn.

 

post a comment
Click for more recent posts Click for older posts

Name: Ham Location: London, United Kingdom View my complete profile