Saturday February 15th 2020. Tim and Beryl Hall’s bungalow in Bracknell, Berkshire. Their son Rob arrives on one of his fairly regular visits, having travelled by train from Reading. He works shifts now, four ten-hour days followed by two days off. The idea is to cut commuting journeys, which was happening anyway because of the expense of all forms of powered transport, especially the car. People aren’t so bothered nowadays about finding the ‘right’ job, but any job near heir home. Rob retrained in horticulture when the construction company he worked for went bust in 2013, and he grows fruit, vegetables and nuts for one of Reading’s rising number of urban food co-operatives. His job has its stresses: crop thefts, hungry insects and small mammals like rabbits, drought and flash floods, and uncertain pollination by bees whose colonies have been unstable for well over a decade.

(more…)