How sad to read Phineas Harper’s article about council tenants being denied the pleasure of cultivating a small garden on the plots of land outside their properties (The council has come for our gnomes and pot plants. Your hanging basket might be next, 23 May).
When my mother and I moved into a new council flat in Manor Park in east London in the 1960s (now part of Newham), the large piece of land between our flat and the Eastern Region railway viaduct was divided into small garden plots, each with individual clothes lines. Most tenants took full advantage of these plots, taking great pleasure in cultivating them in their own individual ways.
