As it's National Allotment Week I thought I would send you a personal view on allotment life.

Along with millions of others across the country, I work in an office all week with telephones, emails and constant meetings.

An allotment has no phones or computer access. It is a place to get away from the intrusions of the modern world, a place with space to unwind, think and put life in order.

The only sound you hear when watering at 7am are the sounds of the birds going about their business. I have often sorted out life's problems in my head while standing with a watering can in my hand.

It seems crazy now but four years ago, my wife and I had never eaten fresh peas from a pod, dug up our own potatoes or even contemplated growing a squash - I don't think we even knew what one was!

With our own vegetables, we are now practically self-sufficient. From the excitement of choosing our crops to planting them, nurturing them and then reaping the harvest, it is such a rewarding process.

We did not appreciate you could grow vegetables all year round and now enjoy sprouts, cabbage and leeks in the winter, safe in the knowledge they haven't been sprayed with pesticides or flown halfway around the world.

Finally, but most importantly, it is the people we have come across at the allotments who make it so worthwhile.

Those who I have met have been friendly and always ready to offer advice.

The challenges allotment holders face always give us a common bond.

An example comes to mind of our experience at the allotments. Ollie's late wife, Joy, gave us some golden chrysanthemums which they had grown themselves.

They were beautiful flowers and we instantly had an urge to try to grow our own.

On talking to Glyn he gave us three tubers to over-winter, explaining the process of storing them.

In the spring, Brian showed us how to pot them and look after them. Then, on planting them, George gave us advice on cutting them down to get the biggest blooms.

Now we have a bed of chrysanthemums waiting to burst into flower and each time we look at them all these people's friendships come to mind.

This is just one example and in years to come I hope future generations benefit from similar advice.

Allotments these days have a wide variety of people on them and working the soil provides a common bond between generations, which is surely too great a benefit to be lost to a car park.

The allotment site is such an integral part of our lives that my wife and I cannot understand why it isn't obvious to everyone why they are worth saving.

In today's departmentalised, sanitised, helter-skelter world they offer an opportunity for freedom of expression, good living and comradeship which is hard to beat.

David Tyrrell, secretary,

-Brighton and Hove Allotment Federation