Allan Jenkins

Most mornings follow the same pattern; I wake at the angry insistence of the alarm, then ablutions, head downstairs, empty the dishwasher, make lunches and take a coffee up at 7 am to wake my wife. Then it is the fun job of waking the dead, or teenagers as they are otherwise known… That said, there is something about waking early on a bright clear day at the weekend, before anyone else in the household has woken, getting a coffee and sitting outside with a book. It is a rare treat.

This is Allan Jenkins perspective too. He is in bed early to enable him to rise very early in the morning, sometimes as early as 4 am. In this magical time as night shifts today, he uses it to walk, read, garden on his allotment or just to enjoy the moment. He talks to others who love this time of the morning, asking the same set of questions and eliciting very different responses for each participant. I liked the diary format, the chart of sun rises over the course of a year and the exploration of various subjects concerned with mornings and just thought that this was a really well-written celebration of mornings and dawn.… (more)

Memoirs are tricky things, and in general I don’t read them. I requested this one because I work professionally with allotments and I wanted to see what Mr. Jenkins, a noted writer and editor for The Guardian newspaper, has to say.

Mr. Jenkins juxtaposes the chaos and pain of his childhood, in which he and his brother were abandoned into the UK foster care system, with the stability of participating in a stable allotment garden community.

The benefits of gardening as a formal and structured adjunct therapy for various mental health conditions are well studied but perhaps are not well known to the general public. You might want to take a look at the literature. But the joy and peace that gardening brings has been documented since the mediaeval monks and so we should be pleased but not surprised that Mr. Jenkins' ties to the land throughout his adult life have brought him much pleasure and companionship.

I received a review copy of "Plot 29: A Love Affair With Land" by Allan Jenkins (HarperCollins UK, 4th Estate) through NetGalley.com.… (more)