The Acorns of Bartlett Park

'The Acorns of Bartlett Park' is a piece of micro-fiction, that was written for and won the prose catgory of the Sydney Gardens Tree Weekender Writing Competition and was awarded this fabulous illustration of the story by Alban Low. 

Sydney Gardens Tree Weekender Writing Competition

Prompt: Trees in our local public gardens and parks have a special place in our hearts. They have boosted our spirits and willingly offered us something to hug! We want you to put your feelings about trees in public gardens and parks into just 250 words.We invite you to write a flash story or poem of 250 words or under about trees in your local public garden or park.

My story is about a tree in Bartlett Park in the East End of London. I'd been in this park with my partner sheltering in the rain with a carpet of acorns under our feet. As a child and a mother and youth worker I've played with acorns like these but this story is also about the stories we tell our children. The stories we tell them for fun or protection or to explain what we do not know. About nature and our nature. Some stories get changed over time, and we forget that Pinochio's maker Geppetto told the first lie, and not Pinochio, in Carlo Collodi's original story - Adventures of Pinocchio: The Story of a Puppet (1881-1883). I wrote my story thinking about climate change deniers and Covid deniers, wondering about the stories they will tell their children, and the stories those children will tell theirs.

👂 Listen to all the shortlisted stories read here.

Sydney Gardens Tree Weekender is a partnership project between ReThinking Cities and the Sydney Gardens Project and this competition was run by Rethinking Cities/Museum of Walking on behalf Bath and Northeas Somerset Council.