The week before last, about 25 of us from the office took a day out from paper-pushing and email to help the Mile End Park community project in Tower Hamlets. Tower Hamlets is one of the UK's poorest borough, suffering from many of the problems that blight innner city communities. As such, a facility such as Mile End Park is a God-send for many of the residents, and so it was no hardship at all for us to spend a day helping the wardens. The task they had set aside for us was to clear the weed, algae and rubbish from the large ornamental pond. It was very overgrown and took all of us most of the day to get it back into shape. Not only did we end up make a good job of the tasks set for us, but we went away with a real sense of having helped in a small way, and of having got to know each other a little better.
The highlight of the day for me was when a few of us went to the local pub at the end of the afternoon for refreshments. We ended up in the Palm Tree which was orginally the corner pub on the slum streets of London's East End, and had survived the blitz in WWII. It now stands resplendent in the middle of the park, yet inside, still has the atmosphere and ambiance of a traditional London local. Standing there, you could almost feel the long gone houses that would have crowded round the pub. Well worth the visit.
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