How to | Start a Community Fridge

Feed the thousands and save food from landfill

We were inspired to hear about Chesham Community Fridges this month, an organisation which won in the Working Together category of our much-coveted Neighbourhood Awards. 

You may have seen one advertised near you or tried it out yourself in a bid to save food from landfill. Community Fridges are popping up everywhere and doing so much good.Chesham’s Community Fridge was originally established with help from Hubbub, one of the first pioneers of the Community Fridge movement. They have a very helpful guide to setting up on their website. If you’re considering starting your own, here’s a brief overview of the things Hubbub say you should think about before you begin.

1. You’ll need an organisation to ‘lead’ your project (it can’t be an individual) so consider who that could be. It could be a church, local charity or other volunteer organisation. You’ll also need them to include the fridge on their liability insurance.

2. Consider contacting environmental health before you start for advice and to make sure you’re properly registered. 

3. When seeking a location, look for somewhere covered and secure. An area with good footfall is best but as long as it’s accessible that’s the main thing. 

4. Things you might want in your space (as well as the fridge) include: a freezer, shelves for dry food storage, bins for packaging and recycling, a table on which to sort out the bags, scales for weighing things, wall space for an information board. You could even have a herb garden if you have some outdoor space, too. 

Find out more about Chesham Community Fridges, as well as our other Neighbourhood Awards winners, which include eco initiatives, community shops and craft collectives, in our March ‘Light’ issue, on sale now. 

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Celebrating | A Really Good Garden Centre

We’re on a mission to find the best garden centres in the UK and we’d like your help

Lockdown has rekindled our love affairs with many simple pleasures: reading, baking bread, drawing… but perhaps the simple thing that made the biggest difference was gardening, and not just gardening, but very specifically the joy of a trip to the garden centre. 

A peculiarly but very jolly British institution, garden centres remained open for most of lockdown and, as the nation has once again begun tinkering with houseplants, tidying borders, planting up veg patches and eyeing up more ambitious plans such as willow teepees and outdoor bars, garden centres have been there to provide. In fact, so keen were we to get out in the garden, that during April 2020 there were more Google searches on when garden centres would reopen than on what was happening with school closures.

And little wonder. For a long time (not lonly during lockdown), garden centres have been our happy place. Memories of childhood Sundays spent walking the long aisles behind our parents, fingering geranium leaves and enjoying the unmistakable smell of compost remind us of a simpler time, when garden centres were exciting for being the only thing open on a Sunday. 

Our childhood selves would froth with excitement, though, at the wondrous things on offer at a garden centre these days. Many small chains and independent garden centres have become destinations in themselves, with brilliant cafes and restaurants (that we can’t wait to sample once again soon) offering homecooked meals that outstrip many a local pub; farm shops stocked with jars and sacks of local produce; stores selling artisan beers and wines, crafted gifts and covetable clothes (gone are the days when you were impressed to see a pair of green wellies and a Barbour in a garden centre). Many have even become hubs for creativity and outdoorsiness, putting on workshops and courses for the green-fingered and gardening wannabes alike.

We’ve always been excited to find a Really Good Garden Centre to visit, and we think we should all be sharing that knowledge with each other. So, we’re asking you to send us your recommendations and we’ll put together a Simple Things Guide to Really Good Garden Centres across the UK. Tell us about the RGGCs near you - the ones that have fabulous selections of plants as well as tool shops you can get lost in, yes. But also the ones that always did the best coffee, had the most useful shops and the prettiest views from their cafes. And also those with the most helpful and knowledgeable staff and the ones that run excellent clubs and workshops. We want to pinpoint the garden centres that are an oasis of green in cities, and also those that have over the yearsbecome busy hubs and a place to meet within rural communities.

You can comment in the box below or on our Really Good Garden Centre posts on Facebook and Instagram. We’ll collate the results and share them with you at a later date, so that as the world opens up again, we can all make the most of them, and say a bit of a thank you to these places that became little beacons of hope for many of us in the last year.

More garden inspiration…

From our December issue…

Unboxings | Blue Peter time capsules

At the turn of the year, we often think about what’s behind and what’s ahead. Join us on a trip to the past and future, and tell us what we should put in our Simple Things time capsule!

Just the number 2020, sounds a bit futuristic doesn’t it? And it’s got us thinking about our connections to the future, what we’d want someone to know about life now in hundreds of years time. Of course, these days, our descendants will have endless records of what life was like for us in the form of the internet, but back when we were in short trousers and all this was fields, we knew the most reliable way to capture information about our present for future generations was through a Blue Peter time capsule. The whole of the internet is one thing, but it’s not half so exciting as digging up a capsule Peter Purves buried, is it?

So here’s the story of a few Blue Peter time capsules and what happened to them…

The 1971 capsule

Unearthed: 2000, with the aid of a map, defying the pervasive urban myth that the BBC had lost the plans that detailed the place of its burial. 

Buried by: Valerie Singleton, John Noakes and Peter Purves

The first ever Blue Peter Time Capsule was buried in 1971 in front of BBC TV Centre. The idea seemed to be that it would be opened at the start of the new millennium, giving children we all assumed would be wearing space suits and watching Blue Peter being streamed directly into their brains by Davros from Dr Who, an insight into a simpler time. But what did they choose to bury for posterity? 

What was inside? A set of decimal coins that were introduced that year (in retrospect, some of those haven’t changed so a set of pre-decimalisation coins might have been a better choice), a Blue Peter Annual from 1970 (which sadly got rather waterlogged), and photos of the three presenters (who were there when it was dug up again in 2000). 

What makes it special? This capsule has an air of mystery about it. The producers in 2000 made the decision not to broadcast the opening of the time capsule live just in case nothing had survived. Most of it had survived, albeit in rather dank state, but it became clear during filming that the items inside had been rewrapped at some point… This was likely when the capsule was moved to a new site in the Blue Peter garden during redevelopment work. We prefer to think it was the ghost of Shep, getting busy with the sticky-back plastic. (OK, we only said it had an air of mystery…) It also had a distinct air of cheese about it. The opening of the capsule can be watched on YouTube, with the presenters heard to be loudly commenting on the stench. No one wrinkles their nose like Valerie Singleton. 

The 1984 capsule

Unearthed: 2000

Buried by: Simon Groom, Janet Ellis and Peter Duncan

The second time capsule was buried along with the first (which had to be moved) in the Blue Peter Garden. 

What was inside? Some of Goldie the dog’s hair (??!) - we can only assume the hope was that by 2020 Goldie could be cloned using her own DNA and reborn. Also a record of the Blue Peter theme tune, arranged by Mike Oldfield, and video footage of the statue of Petra (the original Blue Peter dog) being moved (there wasn’t much newsworthy happening in 1984, clearly).

What makes it special? Dead dog hair is pretty unusual, we’ll give it that. We wonder how Mike Oldfield felt about it.

The millennium capsule (1998)

Yet to be opened but scheduled for 2050

Buried by: Katy Hill and Richard Bacon beneath the Millennium Dome, London, as it was being built. 

What is inside? As well as the usual Blue Peter ephemera, they also buried a set of Tellytubby dolls, an insulin pen and a France 98 football. 

What makes it special? It’s the most well-travelled Blue Peter time capsule. In 2017 the box was damaged when a builder at the dome had an accidental  ‘here’s one I buried earlier’ moment and dug it up unknowingly. The capsule was taken back to the BBC in Salford and restored, but it was decided that rather than rebury it the contents would go on tour to mark the show’s 60th birthday in 2018, meeting with ex-presenters at various spots around the country. After the Tellytubbies had enjoyed their airing the capsule went to the National Archives where it will be stored until it is opened in 2050. 

The 2000 capsule

Yet to be opened but scheduled for 2029

Buried by: Katy Hill, Konnie Huq, Simon Thomas and Matt Baker at BBC TV Centre. Later moved to Media City in Salford when the show decamped there.

This capsule was buried when the first two were unearthed… Well, when you’ve already got a dug hole, why would you not?

What is inside? The 29th Blue Peter book, details about the presenters, some video programme highlights, ,a gold medallion and set of badges to mark the 40th anniversary of the show in 1998 and - this is our favourite - instructions on how to make a George the Tortoise toy! The presenters also added items of their own: a CD from Konnie, an old mobile from Simon Thomas, a ring from Katy from her Mongolia trip and from Matt Baker, a Geordie phrasebook. 

What makes is special? Clearly, the George the Tortoise project! With only 19 years to wait, we’re counting down to this one. 

The Diamond capsule (2018)

Yet to be opened but scheduled for 2050

Buried by: Not buried at all, but kept in the National Archives. This capsule was stored by the winner of a Blue Peter competition as well as a raft of presenters past and present: Radzi Chinyanganya, Lindsey Russell, Valerie Singleton, Peter Purves, Janet Ellis and Katy Hill.

The Diamond Time Capsule was stored to mark 60 years of Blue Peter and is due to be opened in its 80th anniversary year. 

What’s inside? Viewers sent in suggestions in their thousands. The programme whittled that down to a list of 20 and then there was a viewers’ vote for the final ten, which is as follows:

2018 set of UK coins and notes
Souvenir from the Royal Wedding between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle
World map with endangered animals in 2018 plus memory stick with a list of critically endangered animals as registered on The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
World Cup 2018 sticker book
DVD of The Greatest Showman
Bestselling children’s book of 2018 – David Walliams’ The World’s Worst Children 3
Smartphone
British passport (previously belonging to Ewan Vinnicombe the current Blue Peter Editor!)
Fidget spinner
Chart music from 2018 – Now That’s What I Call Music 100 CD and tracks on memory stick

What’s special about it? It’s the only one of the time capsules never to be buried outdoors. Lessons were learned from the smell of damp Stilton emanating from the 1971 capsule, it seems. Where’s the fun in that though?

You can read more about time capsules in our January issue’s Miscellany. 

Now help us fill our Simple Things time capsule

We’d forgotten just how much we love a time capsule and we thought, just for fun, we might put together our own Simple Things time capsule full of things that are very TST in 2020. Tell us what you’re like us to put in it and we’ll get a capsule together* and bury it in a secret (or simply as yet undecided) location in the spring. Maybe one day we can open it and reminisce about how simple things were much more simple back in 2020…

*Disclaimer: this may well be a Family Circle biscuit tin. We’re not the BBC, you know.

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Jaunt: the Isle of Wight

This is our island in the sun(shine, turning cloudy through the afternoon)

You can take your Canaries and your private Caribbean islands; they’re nice if you just want sun sea and sand. And much as we love some wild wilderness, you can keep your Hebrides and your Orkneys; lovely for a bit of alone time and drama, but a bit, well, unfestive for a jolly holiday.

But the Isle of Wight is hard to beat. As a holiday resort, he island has come in for some criticism in recent years. Perhaps poshos indulge it for Cowes Week, but its seaside proms, amusements and crazy golf courses might be seen as a little infra dig in some circles. We say hurrah to that - more jolly Isle of Wight fun for us, and they’re missing the best of the island.

There can’t be many places that you can visit as a child and return 30-odd years later to find nothing has changed - in a good way. But the island is one of them. In some of the chocolate box villages, you could be walking into the 1950s. It also has some of the best of the UK’s beaches, rolling countryside and top-notch eateries.  And the best thing about it is that wherever you happen to visit that morning, if you tire of it you can simply jump in the car - or on the wonderful train line serviced by ex-London Underground cars dating back to 1938, and rocket across the island to a different venue. No, wait - the very best thing about it is that you get to go on a ferry ride, making it feel like you are truly leaving real life behind and jetting off to foreign climes… and yet it only takes about 45 minutes.

In our April issue our ‘My Neighbourhood’ feature takes us on a tour of the Isle of Wight and it had us all just itching to jump onto a Red Funnel ferry immediately and be pouring coloured sand into glass lighthouses and eating fish and chips by an open fire by lunchtime. So we’ve been thinking about famous fictitious journeys to the Isle of Wight. Here’s our round-up of our favourites.

The couple in ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’ by The Beatles.

In this whimsical imagining of how a relationship would pan out years from the present, the singer hopes: ‘Every summer we can rent a cottage in the Isle of Wight, if it's not too dear… We shall scrimp and save.’ Well. Don’t go in Cowes Week, but off peak, you should be fine. Vera, Chuck and Dave (the grandchildren on their knee) might have to stay behind if it’s school term time, though.
Sadly, The Fab Four never actually crossed the Solent together to play, but we think of the Isle of Wight as a very Beatles place to have a jolly still.

Martha in Julian Barnes’s England England

In the second part of this tripartite novel, Martha is employed by Sir Jack Pitman who wants to turn the Isle of Wight into a huge theme park called England England, which replicates all of the country’s best known historical buildings, sites and people, to save tourists the bother of traipsing around the whole of England itself. Genius.

The films Mrs Brown and Victoria and Abdul

Both were filmed at Osborne House on the island. Perhaps no great surprise since Osborne House was summer home to Queen Victoria for the last 50 years of her reign. But she had a lovely time apparently. Loved the crazy gold at Shanklin.

Day of the Triffids

Saving our favourite IOW appearance for last… Day of the Triffids. In the John Wyndham 1950s Sci-Fi novel, the characters flee the mainland and set up a new colony on the island, safe from the ravages of the giant man-eating plants. The island is actually a real-life safe haven for unusual flora and fauna today, from the red squirrel and Granville Fritillary butterfly to narrow-leaved lungwort and Early Gentian. Just don’t pick the flowers - they might bite back!

For more on the Isle of Wight buy our April issue, in shops now.

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