Britain’s history is of an overcrowded island. The overcrowding was compounded in the 18th and 19th centuries by land grabs that concentrated property in the hands of a few large landowners at the expense of the rural poor. With no land to farm and no food to eat, the rural population fled to the cities, providing the labour that fuelled the Industrial Revolution, created the first mega-slums and directly led to the writings of Marx and Engels and the rise of Communism.

What was true for the 19th century is true for the 21st. Land grabs still happen, with urban developers splashing concrete over what were once green, public spaces. But what the urban British public has had for over 100 years, are allotments - small plots of soil where one can grow flowers, fruit and vegetables and escape from the pleasures and terrors of urban Britain, an escape Andrew Buurman documents in his charming book, Allotments.



Buurman shows us a democratic slice of contemporary England in all its diversified glory. He shows us how it is possible to tell the background of an allotment holder by what they grow but also by how they grow it - a Caribbean man carries a giant pumpkin in his wheelbarrow, a Sikh farms Punjabi-style, with rows of spinach waving towards where he sits under his rickety shed.




We see the fund-raising events, the tombola and the allotment sales room, the produce competition where a white-haired man lines parsnips up to be judged. Best of all is the cover picture, pasted onto its earth brown cloth cover, of a red-cheeked man clutching the biggest bunch of dahlias ever. He's posed gloriously, his mouth open, his eyes closed as he stands in his floral ecstasy. It's a wonderful image from a book that, in its modest way, provides a picture of urban England. —Colin Pantall