Challenge to myself

.... to write about Frome in my sixtieth year, ie. 2028

Frome 2028

I'm sitting in the amphitheatre in the curve of the river in the centre of Frome, it's 2028 and I'm glad of the shade of the tent here and the trickle of water flowing down the steps into the river. A solar water taxi just pulled up & the kids are tumbling out, clutching their lunch boxes....

What a difference it made when the river level was raised in 2017, making the river navigable from Blatchbridge to Freshford & on to Bath. Since the fish-farm was built out beyond the now-derelict Asda site and flood prevention resolved the need for the 'canal' we used to have through the centre of town, the river is a magnet for activities and a lovely place to sit here on a Sunday afternoon. I've just finished my session at the Cheese & Grain & I'm waiting for the methane bus from the Cork Street terminal. I dug out the old file the other day - can't believe it was 2002 the amphitheatre was first proposed! Let me tell you what I see around me....

Market Yard here has truly returned to being a market yard, not the Cattle Market of 1992! Our consumption of meat has drastically reduced since those days and Standerwick is now a thriving Farmers Centre and Energy Company HQ.
We have markets here now on Mondays, Wednesday, Fridays & Saturdays. I used to come by train from Great Elm, stopping behind the Cheese & Grain and bringing eggs in return for Frome Pounds or Vallis Veg, now I'm living in Leigh I catch the methane bus every Monday & Friday. On Sundays my son-out-of-law brings me here in his electrocar, charging up for free while we go to the skills swap. The river is flanked by community market gardens which are a delight to wander thorugh & you can pick up lots of ideas & tips, and sometimes free veg.

I just gave a mini-talk on the Frome Energy Company Union (FECU) that we set up in 2020, using methane digestion in Innox, and subsequently at Standerwick and Lullington to convert farm, food and industrial waste into gas and electricity. Tim, who founded the company with me, is still pottering around organising the troops in sprightly fashion, despite having just celebrated his 80th! He now lives a stones-throw to the north of the former sewage works by the weir on the river and is one of our many small-hydro owners. Last week the Sunday Skills swap was about cheese making - something I've been thinking of doing since 2008 but never got round to it! My slightly reticent changes to a more vegetarian diet have increased my cheese-love considerably. I couldn't cope without my fortnightly bacon-fest ... but wild duck & pigeon are abundant in this patch now - Rode Bird Garden having been replaced by DODO (Doulting Organic Ducks Org.).

Talking of age, my daughter Dolly (28) and grandaughter Martha (4) are organising my 70th - they fancy a skating party at Rodden Ice Festival but I've said I would prefer the usual bonfire party. I'm taking M up to the Showground next week to the mega-play centre. The adjacent hospital is one of the few places (understandably), not involved in the PPP peoples powerdown project. Every day at 6pm we (voluntarily) switch off the juice [I actually think of it more like community juice than ever before!] at 6 til 7. In the summer we tend to have community barbeques and in the winter pot-luck suppers by candlelight. Anyhow the hospital is one of the first to achieve their zero-carbon centificate with the largest PV array in Frome, conveniently shading the mega-play centre and animal centre on the Showground. While I'm keeping an eye on Martha and getting us both a free skin-check at the hospital, Dolly is planning a hike around the Stonebridge Trim Trail! She's going to stop off at one of her breastfeeding awareness mates and plan their Time Bank treat. I think they are cycling to Batcombe for an awayday in the sweat lodge & a bit of massage, and to catch up on the twin-twin project (where each child born in the UK is twinned with one in a developing country for shared understanding & funding support).

Anyhow, back to here, I've got 20 minutes before the bus arrives, I've been discussing with a fellow skill-swapper the new Library extension - we both hate it! Despite the fact that they put the third storey on to match the local stone, and I know it contributed to their zero-carbon gold star status, but why oh why did that have to inflict Frome with that hideous bling solar intensifier in the shape of a huge silver book hovering over the building? AWFUL! I think I've run out of time to do a slow milk-float trip up Catherine Hill to see how the Badcox Community Bakery is getting on, oh well maybe next time.

Cork Street garden, formerly Cork Street car park, is now flanked by permanent market stalls, available for first-come-first-trade, on a half-day basis. The linear market thorugh the town from the C&G to Saxonvale Square is no longer blighted by the traffic through Market Place - after huge turmoil it was finally pedestrianised in 2019 when the bus terminal was completed in Cork Street. Unlike the hideous silver book on the Library, the methane globes around which the buses turn in Cork Street are sublimely beautiful .. a triumph of art & science working together!

Oh well, despite the growing pains, we are getting there... We won't forget the horrendous few months which helped us to change the minds of many, despite the town being calmer and now beginning to thrive. In 2020 we had a really bad winter with months of power cuts and water stoppages. Bedrock was inundated with 'refugee's’ from the main village, all keen to join us as they knew they could rely on our off-grid supply and CHP system. It did provoke them to install the three new turbines and was the moment when Suzie’s home-schooling pilot project really took off in the main stream, but I really felt for some of the families who hadn't been aware of the oncoming problems.

It wasn't until 2012 when the planners realised the errors in their models til we finally were able to expand the Bedrock concept to other villages of Stoke & Cranmore. Until then they really thought that cars were the enemy of the countryside and couldn't see the possibilities in front of their noses - it wasn't pollution from petrol, a depleted resourse, that was the issue but the erosion of the village community and services which were. By allowing villages to grow more organically & take possession of the surrounding land for food and power generation, the villages were finally freed from the shackles of years of stultification……

more later!