• I HAVE just come back from a very short walk in Talacre Gardens and marvel at the patience of the parks department who have turned this much vandalised open space into a real haven.

They never give up. When one tree is wrenched out of the ground or, less often, dies a natural death, they plant another. And careful thought about how to protect the newcomers without making the place look like a zoo full of dangerous animals, is everywhere evident.

The grove of fruit trees is a little botanical museum with information about every sapling and with a mass of wild flowers around the trunk, which discourage getting too close; and we now have a very passable avenue of trees, bandaged against assault, beside the much-used football court.

As for the daffodils in spring… I am immensely grateful to Camden for this green space on my doorstep – “A lung for the neigh­bourhood” is how it was described by Tessa Jowell when she was our next-door-neighbour in the 1970s.

At the time, the area was little more than a depository for syringes, a meeting place for some cheerful drunks…

ESTHER WHITBY, NW1