Started January 2010 [by Jack Thurgar]

This is a scrapbook dedicated to the study of London's weeds and the wild places where they grow. Wildcornerz also looks at the languages, cultures and mythologies that develop in these cracks.


What is a Wildcorner?

A Wildcorner is a term referring to a piece of land that has been left to grow wild in a man made landscape. To be a true Wildcorner, the land has to be restricted from public access. Many are hidden from public view altogether. A common type of wildcorner is referred to by govements and local authorities as a 'brownfield site'.

Wildcorners and corridors* are dotted all over the capital and vary in content, depending on their location and history. In this blog we focus particularly on the Wildcorners of south east London.

* Wildcorridors are networks of pathways that run through the city and facilitate the propagation and growth of weeds. Many are restricted from public access such as railway embankments and urban rivers. In the suburbs, footpaths such as the Green Chain connect public green areas by a network of alleyways and passages that skirt between houses and private land. It could be argued that these are also wild corridors.



Urban and Suburban Weeds

By the term 'weeds' we are of course referring to the cities wild plants and flowers. But their are also two other weeds that grow in the city.

'Graf' like its botanical relation, has many families and strains. Both of these weeds can often be found together, sharing many qualities including their adaptive nature and unregulated status. Both in many cases, originally entered and populated the city using the railway network.

Another 'weed' that historically flourishes in London is invisible and uses the tops of tower blocks to propagate. Pirate radio like its weed relatives, grows away from the public eye and is constantly adapting to exploit these same gaps across the cities FM radio spectrum, fighting and flourishing in-between the commercial stations.

© Copyright of Wildcornerz. All rights reserved. For enquiries please contact: wildcornerz1@yahoo.co.uk

Wednesday, 1 March 2023

Uncle Yammy; The great storyteller of life behind the door

Thought this was definitly one for the wildcorner corner. Check out Yammy B's youtube channel for his regular stories from over 40 years in the uk prison system.

Yammy came from an extremely traumatic childhood and was put into care at the age of 9 and then on to borstal and then prison. He spent years in the 'Cat A's' where he got hooked on class a drugs and became a notorious hitman for various inmates.

He is now many years clean and a reformed character. He is an amazing story teller, with bags of charisma, natural intellect and humble wisdom .. and so dam likeable too!  His stories come effortlessly from his memory and couldn't be told better if they had been written and rehearsed a hundred times. 

Here also is his excellent James English interview which goes back to his childhood and where he is at today. 



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1 comment:

  1. Anonymous1 March 2023 at 12:25

    Interesting guy, eh? Thanks for that. Keep blogging, gotta rep the ends! 💯

    ReplyDelete

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