Above: the secret entrance to the ‘Invisible Garden’ created on Crossbones Graveyard by Andy Hulme (who’d previously been Viviene Westwood’s gardener). The site owners, Transport for London, had employed him as a kind of security guard, living on site in a beaten-up caravan. One of his main jobs was to prevent Crow and the Friends of Crossbones from entering the graveyard. However, it seemed he’d eavesdropped on our Vigils held outside the shrine in Redcross Way on the 23rd of the every month since 2004. At one of these Vigils, Jennifer had visualised a garden on what was thendescribed by TfL as a derelict industrial site. At another, Crow hung on the shrine a painting by his late friend Barry Parman (an early victim of AIDS). It showed an image of Christ as The Green Man with leaves and flowers sprouting from his wounds – with the words ‘Supposing Him To Be The Gardener’ a quote from The Gospel of John when Mary Magdalene meets the risen Christ in the garden.
In 2007, the Invisible Gardener approached Crow out of the blue and showed him the way in! Over the next six years they worked together (with occasional clashes of temperament) – with the Invisible Gardener overseeing the creation of the garden, whilst Crow created shrines to The Goose, sex workers, outcasts, addicts… During that time TfL didn’t even know the garden existed. By the time they realised it was a fait accompli.
In 2015, TfL began negotiating with Bankside Open Spaces Trust (BOST – a south London based community gardening charity) a process which led to the granting of a 30 year lease and the opening of a public garden of remembrance. That’s the present state of things. A look at the wider world reminds us that things can always go pear-shaped, yet today, at the approach to Christmas, we can rejoice at how our once despised little pauper’s graveyard (with a estimated re-development value of £25 million) has become an internationally recognised shrine and garden of remembrance for sex workers and outcasts.
Goose may your Spirit fly free!
“God bless us every one.”
Above: Red Cross Mary cradles her Goose in the snow.
Photo 1 by Max Reeves
Photos 2 & 3 by Katy Kaos aka Katy Nicholls
