The Concrete Garden

This story was written in Covid times and features a group of children who use their creative skills and a large box of coloured chalks to transform the concrete area in front of their tower block home into a magical space that becomes an uplifting sight, not only for the locals but for people all over the world.

It all starts when Amanda and other young residents draw first flowers, then gradually add various other things until they have produced an exotic garden alive with insects, plants, birds as well as an alien space craft, all of which is ruled over by ‘the Queen of Swirls’ (Rosie’s contribution to the scene).

Inevitably their creation becomes the victim of the rain, but not before the enterprise has been captured on Nasrin’s phone and sent to her mum far away in Iran, who then passes it on to everybody she knows.

Back in their home territory the children, having received appreciative responses from all the flat dwellers, are unfazed by the effects of the downpour and come back outside once it stops, Amanda with a now empty box. This she proceeds to rip into pieces and thus begins a new imaginative activity for her and her friends.

Community spirit is one good thing that was re-ignited by Covid and Bob Graham captures this beautifully here in his instantly recognisable mixed media scenes. Graham paints pictures too with his words; I particularly loved the sentence, ’Children spilled out like sweets from a box.’ as they emerge from the forbidding flat block. A delight from start to finish.