Duckers & Diving: Uncovering Moseley’s guerrilla gardener
THIS week our intrepid scribe uncovers a tale set to rock Moseley to its foundations – or is just bare-faced cheek?
I have discovered that Lou Jones, chief executive of C3 Consulting in Birmingham, is something of an urban guerrilla – as Network Rail has discovered to its cost; especially when she threatened them with a nude protest!
Phew! Pass the smelling salts, vicar.
But no need to call out MI5 – being in her company may at times be a touch ‘dangerous’ but there’s nothing unlawful going on…well nothing much.
It turns out she is into guerrilla gardening – defined as gardening on land that gardeners do not have legal right to use, often an abandoned site or area not cared for by anyone – specifically the rail embankment beside the Moseley home she shares with her husband, former commercial property guru, Chris Monk.
Her showdown with Network Rail began some while back when she decided that the overgrown and rubbish strewn embankment needed attention.
And attention it got.
Lou is a determined lady when she sets her mind to something so at her instigation the thing was knocked into shape – flowers and bulbs planted, five skips filled with rubbish and carted away, broken fencing replaced, even ‘bee hotels’ erected.
However, this was much to the irritation of Network Rail – despite all the improvements.
She said: “We cut their padlock off the entrance gate and put our own on. They came along, cut it off, and replaced it. We cut theirs off … and this went on for several years.
“Until finally they threatened to do me for trespass and come along with a digger and remove everything we had done to make the embankment look nice.
“So I told them I would meet them there stark naked and invite all and sundry along to witness the confrontation.”
The bare faced cheek of it!
PS: Moseley is not for nothing known as Birmingham’s most cosmopolitan village suburb. Chris was sent out for the milk the other Saturday and there walking in the opposite direction was the local pet shop owner with a live snake draped round his neck. Moseley being Moseley nobody batted an eyelid!
