The make-do-and-mend movement is back. When the recession began, clever marketing people at John Lewis dug out and republished a 1943 governmental booklet on how to darn socks and re-patch roofs using wastepaper. World war two kitsch was duly rekindled there has been since 2009 an unrelenting stream ‘make do and mend’ media output. Channel 4 a launched a ‘Make Do And Mend’ TV show advising viewers on how to have fun with frozen vegetables. Joan Bakewell has recently joined the celebration of frugality with an article in last week’s Telegraph, describing valiant efforts to deliver parcels by hand.
Yet modern make-do-and-mend lacks the defining feature of its 1943 counterpart. The earlier version came out of the war effort and was predicated on a sense of community spirit born out of a need for help on the home front. Food was scare so city dwellers pulled together to turn parks into vegetable gardens. Clothes were rationed so women ran up their own or darned holes in what they had. However, these activities took place in the context of pre-existent community structures like church groups, knitting circles, the Women’s Institute, and the Women’s Royal Naval Service which made skill-sharing easier and reduced costs. The acquisition of a new skill takes not only time but patience and we are far more likely to succeed within a supportive social framework than of we go it alone. Watching someone whip up a pair of curtains on television is not the same as being shown how to do it first hand. At the very least, observes Joy Pite from the Wanstead Women’s institute, ‘in a social setting, there’s more incentive to complete the task’.
Modern make-do-and-mend is the DIY craze of the 90s clothed in rather more frayed robes, due to an absence of community space. Most neighbourhoods during World War 2 had thriving churches and community centres, which made for strong and intergenerational social networks. These days people are working longer hours, spending their free time online, moving around more and therefore feel a decreased sense of affiliation with those in their physical surroundings.
This is what the organisers at Heathrow Grow are trying to remedy in the London suburb of Sipson. Heathrow Grow is predicated on the idea that cost-efficient and sustainable living requires somewhere for people to meet regularly and face to face. ‘It’s a lot easier to demonstrate things to people than it is to explain them’ says Alex, one of the project’s architects, ‘and it’s a lot cheaper to organise things as a group’. Built on an acre of land that was once an abandoned plant nursery, Heathrow Grow consists of a thriving vegetable garden and two greenhouses that have been transformed into workshop space. Its organisers have set up free classes on the basic principles of growing food, how to maintain a bicycle and even how to weld.
The Heathrow Growers have worked hard to convince the people of Sipson that community spirit is the key to the making daily life not only cost-efficient but ecologically sustainable. They have promoted the project by handing out free vegetables at the village market and have successfully involved themselves in the local Residents’ Society, Allotment Society and Young People’s Society. Local residents frequently come by make use of the facilities on offer or just to hang out and the site has proven particularly attractive to “N.E.E.T.S” looking to pick up new skills. ‘It’s great here’, explains Dan, an unemployed resident of Sipson who has recently become involved with the project. ‘I help out with the gardening. And it’s nice to have somewhere to potter around’.
Although the political outlook held by most of the project’s participants does not cohere with that expressed by the current government, Heathgrow Grow actively embodies many of Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ values. According to the the government’s online mission statement, the ‘Big Society’ exists to ‘give individuals more power and responsibility and use it to create better neighbourhoods and services’. Since Heathrow Grow has done far much more than the make-do-and-mend-movement to make this happen, those of us hoping for not only more financially efficient households but also the revival of flagging community spirits look forward to seeing more like it.
Plans to build a third runway through Sipson threaten Heathrow Grow’s continued existence. Its fate will be determined at Central London County Court on 18th and 19th June 2012. Sign their petition at: http://www.transitionheathrow.