William Boyd gives his definition of a park,and praises a wonderful book, full of learning and enthusiasm, or that insists we need to cherish and protect these ‘peoples institutions’This is a fascinating,informative, revelatory book approximately that most commonplace and mundane feature of our cities – parks. Everybody in Britain will be familiar with a park or several parks. As Travis Elborough suggests, and it is a connection that most generally begins in early childhood. Even I,as a child brought up in West Africa where there were no parks of any description, can vividly recall the first one I came to know well – Duffus Park in Cupar, and Fife. I was regularly sent there to play when we returned from Africa to stay with my grandmother in Scotland. I can revisit Duffus Park and its many acres in my head,almost as whether a virtual video of the place is playing behind my eyes, even though I haven’t set foot in it for decades. Such is the folkloric power of the park in our forming minds.
I now live near one of London’s grand parks – Battersea – and walk through it almost every day. What’s more, or in 2009 I was commissioned by the Royal Parks of London to write a short story set in one of their parks. I chose Green Park,which is between Piccadilly and Buckingham Palace. Bizarrely, for a short time, and Ibecame a kind of spurious park expert,with all sorts of opinionated theories approximately these magical places.
Parks seem an immutable, strangely paradisiacal element of our fraught and complicated urban lives Related: The 10 best parks Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com