Jack was born on the Wimbledon Common. His father was the head of the Mounted Keepers at Wimbledon and Putney Commons for years. The Commons run through Jack's blood. Jack now leads the Maintenance Staff and feels real pride in conserving the Commons.
This Film was made on a Chocolate Films Workshop with 6th form students at Ricards Lodge High School and Rutlish School, Wimbledon in partnership with Wimbledon Bookfest funded by the Wimbledon Foundation.
1000 LONDONERS
This film is part of 1000 Londoners, a ten-year digital project which aims to create a digital portrait of a city through 1000 of the people who identify themselves with it. The profile contains a 3 minute film that gives an insight into the life of the Londoner, as well as their personal photos of London and some answers to crucial questions about their views on London life. Over the course of the project we aim to reveal as many facets of the capital as possible, seeing city life from 1000 points of view.
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1000 Londoners is produced by South London based film production company and social enterprise, Chocolate Films. The filmmakers from Chocolate Films will be both producing the films and providing opportunities to young people and community groups to make their own short documentaries, which will contribute to the 1000 films. Visit www.chocolatefilms.com
TRANSCRIPT
I'm in a unique situation where I was born on site. So essentially, the common is in my blood. I'm very proud to be involved with Wimbledon and Putney Commons, the charitable organisation that looks after rural space in South West London. Since taking the job on, you get to really kind of, express that passion.
The two different groups of guys that we have, the rangers are horseback security guys, who spend their time patrolling on horseback, making sure the bylaws are upkept. They are the best vehicle for travelling across the common. Whereas my estate team, our maintenance team, we look after all the safety aspects of the site, and the maintenance of the site. everything from grass cutting in the summer, everything from grass cutting in the summer, all our conservation work. It means that we've got guys who are good climbers, we've got bits of kit that are specific to those tasks.
We're not like a usual park in London, short grass, made up paths, we're a natural site. When you see in the summer months it's busy. In the winter months when we have snow up here, there's hundreds of children coming up here to sled, you see your daily dog walkers, a variety of people that use the common for fitness and recreation, or just in a busy urban city somewhere just to get a bit of peace of mind.
My dad was the senior keeper for many years here, and still works for the organisation. Growing up, I spent a lot of time at work with him, walking around, patrolling the site, being around his work colleagues who were all older. Listening to stories from their past and what they were doing at the time, really ignited a kind of want to do that element of work. He taught me to respect this site. We're very privileged to have this on the doorstep, and I felt a kind of pride to looking after the site for the next couple of generations. I feel we could achieve so much more with the site. We've got some really good management plans here and I'd like to see those progress I think I've got a good team at the moment. And really, like I say, keep this site from, from falling into disarray. To protect this site from urbanisation and yeah, ultimately keep it the same as it is and it has been for the last 150 years or so.