What Elsie from London left on Beech Road …….

So, it’s amazing just what you encounter at 8 in the morning doing the litter patrol across the Rec on Beech Road.

All the way from the tram stop, 2024

Now I must be honest and confess the art of discovery is down to Declan and other Friends of the Park and not me.

But by way of encouragement, I will often cross the road and chat with him for a few minutes.

Today it started with that modest green box which appeared last week, and which has already begun to mellow with the application of some trellis.

By spring it will no doubt sport some “interesting climbing things” which in turn will start to grow leaves and flowers and so blend with the trees.

The conversation then drifted on to his discoveries.  These are the idly discarded items from people who think that the Rec is an appropriate place to leave the accumulated detritus of their personal possessions, or just maybe hope that what they drop will invoke a discussion about the origins of their litter.

Mellowing green box, 2024

But I wondered why anyone would walk all the way from the tram stop on Wilbraham Road to post their used ticket on a bench in the Rec.  Or even more bizarre why Elsie should think her London Transport ticket had any relevance to how we live here on Beech Road.

That said pride of place in this cornucopia of discarded treasures goes to a boarding pass for a flight from Buenos Aires to Manchester.

There will be some who question why these thrown away bits of someone’s life are worth a mention on the blog, but that is to miss the point.

Rubbish can be history, whether it be a hoard of Roman coins, a lost ring, or carefully preserved old newspaper from the 1930s.

All of them I have written about including bottles, a hand drill dating to the first half of the 19th century  and  items from a Masons regalia.

Ugly is as ugly does, circa 1980

So why not a London Transport ticket?

And to close where we began there will come a time when someone looks for the history of the green box, and compares it to that ugly and now vanished shelter which adorned the Rec until quite recently.

Alas the concrete base that helped tether the barrage balloon disappeared in the 1980s.

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; Metrolink ticket, green box, 2024, and shelter circa 1980 from the collection of Andrew Simpson