Louise Evans's Letter

To my five grandchildren,

So I am the strange grandma who keeps bees ; recycles water from the tap to flush toilet or water the plants; won’t eat shop bought chicken for fear of its treatment. I am the grandma who has floated butterflies on your hands, looked for snails encouraged you to look at the clouds, has the robin and starlings who tap on the window to be fed . I am the grandma who breathes lighter outside , weighs you down with rhubarb from the allotment. I have hoped these things soothe your soul as they do mine. I hope that you agree that they are worth fighting for. When I was a child, in the 1970’s, I walked down a hedgerow and the butterflies were like confetti. A fritillary butterfly settled on my arm. I was transfixed. My dad said “ treasure that - it might never happen again, there are nowhere near the butterflies here now compared to when I was a child” my great uncle said “true- but there were even more than that when I was a child- before the Great War. I hope for a world where you too may have a butterfly on your arm - and that there are the same as there were in the 1905 when my great uncle was a boy.
I love you
Grandma
Xx