What a difference a bit of daylight makes! After what has felt like a very long, dark winter, it was a joy to head out while it was still light — a sure sign that spring (and lighter evening runs) are finally here. We were off over to Forest Gate Community Garden to meet our host Fiona, one of the volunteers from the garden. A small group of us, including first-timer to Newham Ambra, jogged over from Freaks and Geeks to the garden, where we met the rest of the team — including very first-first timer, Gavin, who’d cycled over.

The garden’s story is really interesting — the site was once a hostel, but abandoned and then left to overgrow in 2006 (think buddleias aplenty). A group of determined locals began the transformation in 2013, securing a lease in 2015 and bringing together over 70 volunteers to clear the space, build raised beds, dig a pond, and get planting. By 2016, the garden was open to the public — and it hasn’t looked back since. It’s a great example of what sustained volunteer effort can achieve.

With that inspiration in mind, it was time to get to work. After gathering tools and bags at the garden, we headed over together to a set of community planters along Upton Lane that the Forest Gate team also look after. Being a little distance from the main site makes them trickier to maintain, and so our help is particularly valuable.

We weeded, cleared rubbish, and gave the beds a much-needed refresh ahead of a community garden trail coming up in early June. These planters sit right out on the street, so the difference is immediate — helping make the area feel greener, brighter, and more cared for for everyone passing by and living nearby.

Huge welcome to Ambra and Gavin — it was great to have you both along and making a difference from day one!

📅 What’s coming up?

👉 Check out all our upcoming sessions and sign up here.

There’s no session next week as we take a short Easter break, but we’ll be back on 14th April with a visit to a community garden in Plaistow. After that, we’ve got a fantastic line-up every Tuesday evening over the next few months, plus some weekend tasks on the 18th/19th April, soon to be listed.

And of course, we’re at London Fields Junior parkrun most Sundays if you fancy getting involved.

Great work everyone — see you soon! 🌱

Monday's mission was the last one in March and the first to benefit from the brighter evenings. Our team of 14 GoodGym Tower Hamlets volunteers barely recognised each other in the daylight but were excited by the novel prospect of actually seeing what they were doing. And so, what was it they were doing this time? The GG Tower Hamlets team started the clearance of an overgrown pathway in Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park.

The longer-term project, led by the Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery and Park, will restore the former walkway to allow visitors better access to the burial site, as it once was in yesteryear. In particular, visitors will be presented with a closer look upon the tomb of a certain Perkin family, whose famous son William is the chemist lauded for his accidental discovery of a mauve-coloured dye, back in 1856.

In bringing the colour purple to the world through subsequent mass production, William Henry Perkin arguably sparked a fashion revolution in purple attire, sowed the seeds to inspire a book and films dedicated to the colour purple, and has now prompted GG TH to reconnect with the colourful contribution of a bygone celebrity from their home borough. Praise be William Henry Perkin.

Here follows an interlude of more information about the historical context... skip ahead for the contemporary GG action... William was a chemistry student prodigy who accidentally discovered how to make a synthetic dye for the colour mauve, when still a teenager. He set up a Perkin family business to build a factory, which initiated a whole new industry of dye manufacturing and rocketed the Perkin family to entrepreneurial fame and fortune. William dedicated his life to further chemistry research and was made a knight a few years before his death, in 1907, at 69 years of age. William himself was not laid to rest in TH cemetery, but his parents and siblings are interred in the family grave there, the one about which the path clearance work has been planned. And, thus, the roundabout story, close enough link and good enough reason to indulge in some rose-tinted purple prose to document the mauve magic uncovered through this latest GG TH activity...

Fast-forward 170 years from the beginning of a mauve new world and you'll have seen Dan scrambling around to assemble, well, just himself as it turned out, for the widely and fondly regarded, and hopefully soon-to-be more actively supported: GG TH weekly Group Run. A routine option ahead of the task itself, rendez-vous outside the Town Hall Hotel is at 6.30pm. Do come along and join me / us, if you like, with the next group run before our next group mission. on 13th April. All welcome!

Besides the benefit of a little light evening exercise, a steadily-paced run can open your eyes to the streets around, presenting all manner of surprises... Monday's route jogging along Old Ford Road included a thrilling spot: something wrapped around a large tree in an adjacent park area... none other than the bench rejuvenated by our own fine paint work, a fortnight gone, during the Glass House group mission. An extraordinary sight (for those involved, at least!). Said bench is a shade of green less luminescent than the team had imagined / feared; the fresh / lurid tone softening to mix gently / sharply into the surrounding park life. Check out the photo for yourself!

With all runners, wheelers and walkers gathered at the lodge, Cemetery Park Manager, Ken, (whose second name "Greenway" is possibly the most apposite imaginable) greeted us with wheelbarrowfuls of tools for our task ahead. Ken then guided us through the "green", on our "way" (more of this wit to come), soon reaching the site of the evening's activity: clearing a thoroughly rewilded stretch of land running north to south that had previously been a pathway bisecting different sections of graves, including aforementioned Perkin family tomb.

Stopping here to take breath and to celebrate this Goodgym session as the first for both Freddie and Elizabeth. We warmly welcome you into the fold of GG camaraderie, spreading the joy of doing good whilst keeping fit. Do chat with other members and Taskforce (more experienced members), who can answer any questions you may have, or find somebody who can! We encourage you to do as much Goodgym volunteering as feels right for you. Go for it, and enjoy!

A further pause to big up our group mission host, Ken, whose "way" with "green" life (no more name puns, promise) makes him less like a cemetery park manager and more akin to a great, wise tree, replete with countless branches of nature knowledge. With this image in your mind, Ken gave us a helpfully comprehensive and accessible explanation of the work ahead: namely, what plant life to remove with what tool. And, how to do so in the most careful and useful ("green"?) “way” (the last time, really), all whilst enjoying the gentle flow of friendly GG chatter circulating around the group.

Starting off here with a quick trio of Ken's tool tips for the garden gadgets at our disposal...

Firstly, the fork: keep one foot on the ground, push through the other foot onto the shoulder of the fork for a safe and steady descent into the soil. You'll see Hilary, generously sharing her GG energy over from her regular Newham group, bringing with her an exemplary fork technique, worthy of a fork technique demonstration in any popular gardening programme.

Secondly, onto the saw: grip the handle with an ungloved hand for a firmer grip, which is exactly what Dan isn't showcasing in his unnecessarily awkwardly gripped sawing approach, with glove. The branch featuring in the photo did end up snapped in two, but could have been smoother, without glove. Praise for dogged perseverance, and overcoming a little adversity, nonetheless. Subsequent resolve to heed advice and accept useful help.

Finally, the loppers: suitable for branches of girth no wider than your thumb; appropriate application will give you the desired slicing sensation... like a knife through butter. This popular tool was yielded by too many GG TH lopperers to recall and credit fairly. However, special mention to newbies Freddie and Elizabeth, both fully committed to any stooping down and scrambling about required to achieve the perfectly soft snips through the slender tree trunks.

Herewith bonus equipment advice for tackling the tricksy features of any unwanted ivy or nettle, growing separately or in tandem. Kat downed tools, adopting a direct hands-on approach as the most effective method for intercepting the ivy sprawling over and around the gravestones. Great success. Alas, Anna's similar tussle with a single layer of gloves suffered the stinging attack of intertwined threads of nettle. Adding a second and third layer of gloves fortified the hands of a follow-up assault on the ivy, undeterred by the presence of any prickles, thus asserting gallant revenge over the nettles and a clear victory for the path clearance team.

Moving onto Ken's botany knowledge now: the plant life we had sharpened our tools for. Plant life whose time on this historic spot of earth was nigh... whose days spent encroaching onto a precious path from TH past were numbered... whose fate was about to be sealed with a relocation to the compost heap the other side of the hedge.

Specifically, a surge in growth from the cow parsley (part of the carrot family) needed to be removed, slender roots and all. This was a chore embraced by our Emma, keen to commune with the task's edible offering, nibbling bravely at a freshly rooted cow parsley. Has anybody seen or heard from Emma since btw?

Next up, low-lying shrubbery sprouting up amidst the jumbled mix of gravestones and soil needed halting in its tracks; a stubborn challenge requiring careful identification and precise intervention. Yielding loppers with due care and precision, John and Beth covered the nearside of the site we worked on, whilst Jo scouted to the far edges out yonder, ensuring we stretched our resources along to the top end of the path, too. Results were extraordinary.

Lastly on the plant life removals list: lean saplings set to mature into more substantial trees that would disrupt the restoration of our nearly forgot walkway. This mini felling operation soon gathered up substantial debris, requiring the smooth coordination of volunteers ready to bring out tip-top swiftness and agility from their horticultural toolkit.

Gliding into position came our elite wheeling patrol of GG volunteers, Kareem and Lobo, coordinated by Emma, who recently passed her advanced barrowing proficiency course.

Needless to say that countless piles of organic cut-back were sent shuttling away, transported safely and positioned tidily, adding to the mounting compost heap across the way, all before even the chattiest GG volunteer might have had chance to even mutter the recurring mantra heard that evening, "overgrown gravestone no more".

This kind of complex clearance operation requires calm adaptability and reliable illumination (for the last half hour); qualities provided by our final two volunteer stars of the night Ilana stepped in to cover the organiser responsibilities with cool assurance despite another cyclist bumping into her on her cycle over to task. And Lucinda carried the weight of night lights in her rucksack to illuminate the scene of our eclectic efforts, hidden beneath the darkness that had descended by the end.

Looking back at our team effort, not quite as clear as day, but as clear as portable battery-operated night lights could help us discern, was, yes, a rough thoroughfare of barer space starting to emerge and take the shape of a, yes, definitely maybe, a path. Trusted expert Ken confirmed impressive progress l compared to the jungle scenery he remembered from his more familiar experience of the site. So a solid step on the way to opening up this former north-south passage, allowing cemetery park visitors to walk their way into TH histories, revealed again and remembered once more.

Walking to the lodge and glancing back one last time, it seemed, for a moment, that through the later evening air drifted a fresh mist, rising from the Perkin family tomb, casting a mauve hue along the path we had begun clearing. Stopping still, the near silence was broken only by the new sound of a guitar playing somewhere hidden in the trees, a tune that floated into the semblance of some famous song or other, one by Jimi Hendrix, I recognise now, ah yes, a purple haze, that's the one...

Ending this Goodgym Tower Hamlets group mission report with quick confirmation of a completely ridiculous and entirely invented fantasy moment. But, a fantasy moment fuelled with the restorative qualities of a Goodgym group mission: cooperation, fun, achievement, discovery, and a bit of mauve magic to boot? A welcome blend of qualities as important as ever, set against some of the dispiriting ways of the world we live in.

I hope this kind of Monday night adventure, report and reverie refreshes your spirit to take on the week ahead, in ways it surely does for me :)

Fabulously sunny morning down at the Fields.

Sooz, Sarah and Hilary made great headway on setting up the course and coordinating local volunteers for help - ensuring the full route was marshalled safely.

Hilary took charge of the young Duke of Edinburgh volunteers, securing the all important finish zone with expert timekeeping to ensure every one of the 36 runners received their position and time.

Sarah took up position on her favourite tree 🌳 and then they were off.

All finished and packed away in less than 40 minutes - a swift and wholesome start to any Sunday morning.

Today’s stats: 🏃🏽 36 parkrunners in total 🏆 13 of today’s runners achieved a personal best 4️⃣ newcomers came, including 2 tourists all the way from Edinburgh.