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about

A lament for the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden, a community garden in Deptford, ’Tidemill’ is the last of three songs on the album that features our producer Charlie Hart, who played electric piano on it.

A magical community space, the Tidemill garden, designed by staff and pupils at the Tidemill primary school in the late 1990s, should have been preserved as a community asset, but was earmarked for destruction in long-standing plans by Lewisham Council that involved the closure of the school, which moved across the road in 2012, and proposals to redevelop the entire school site, including the garden (and a block of council flats next door) for a new housing development.

Although the local community was given access to the garden while the plans were developed, and consulted with the council and the developer (Peabody) to try to get the plans amended, they were persistently ignored, and their last act of resistance was to occupy for garden, for two months, from August to October 2018, an occupation in which Andy was deeply involved. News of the occupation spread around the world, but in the end it was violently crushed by bailiffs hired by the council.

It took two years before building work began, and although some of the flats on the site are now completed, much of it is still an incomplete building site — a sign of the developers’ hubris, and, I suspect, because the entire development site is, to some extent, cursed.

For Andy’s archive of articles about Tidemill, see:
www.andyworthington.co.uk/tag/save-reginald-save-tidemill/
For ‘The Battle of Deptford’, a documentary film about the campaign, see:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rcn4whYMCPg

lyrics

Tidemill (Andy Worthington)
with Charlie Hart

Tidemill, oh Tidemill, the people’s space
We miss your playground for children, your trees and your flowers
But most of all we miss your autonomy
The place we could go to be who we want to be

Chorus

And though our leaders talk of much-needed homes
The truth is it’s all about profit
From the Aylesbury to Woodberry Down the wrecking balls still swing
And nothing, nothing can stop it

Tidemill, oh Tidemill, your trees so green
Cut the air pollution killing us all by degrees
But no one cares about your shade
The environment don’t count when there’s money to be made

Chorus (repeat)

Line-up:

Andy Worthington (lead vocals, guitar)
Richard Clare (lead guitar)
Bren Horstead (drums)
Paul Rooke (bass)
Andrew Fifield (flute)
Charlie Hart (electric piano)

credits

from Songs of Loss and Resistance, released September 20, 2024
Written by Andy Worthington.
Recorded at Equator Studios with Charlie Hart, June and July 2022. Mixed August 2022.
Cover design by Brendan Horstead, photo by Andy Worthington.

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The Four Fathers London, UK

Militant, melodic rock & roots reggae band, based in SE London, mostly playing original protest music. Journalist and activist Andy Worthington (lead vocals, electro-acoustic guitar), Richard Clare (electric guitar, vocals) and Andrew Fifield (flute, harmonica), sometimes supported by beatboxer The Wiz-RD (Andy's son Tyler). ... more

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