Hello, Berko!
The light's coming back, the canal path is filling up again and there's a definite sense that we're all starting to sprout.
This feels like exactly the right moment to talk about somewhere that's been growing things — and people — for thirty years.
On the menu this week:
Behind the Counter
What’s happenin’ this week
Sports, dogs and music
Let’s get into it.
There's a version of Berko that visitors see — the high street, the castle, The Rex — and then there's the version locals treasure.
Sunnyside Rural Trust has been part of that quieter Berko for thirty years. The charity supports young people and adults with learning disabilities through horticulture, wellbeing services and running three cafes. Not cafés as an afterthought but as social enterprises that fund the charity's work while giving the people they support real, meaningful hospitality experience.
I'd walked past the Northchurch site more times than I could count before I actually stopped. That turned out to be a mistake.
Thirty years of growing things, it turns out, leaves quite a harvest. Some of it edible, a lot of it social.