Boxing Day

Boxing Day included a wonderful walk in Richmond Park, where the deer refused to be phased by entire families on brand-new shiny bikes or by squawking green parakeets. It won't be long before someone produces Christmas cards featuring parakeets on snowy twigs or wearing Santa Claus hats.



We strolled back past Latchmere House, a building with quite a history. Once the substantial private home of the Dysart family (remembered locally in an eponymous avenue and a pub), it was then a hotel, and then, at the end of WW1, a mental hospital for combat-fatigued officers. In WW2 it was Camp 020, a detention and interrogation centre for enemy agents captured by MI5. Now it's HMP Latchmere House, currently housing 207 adult male prisoners who have progressed through their sentences to a point where, with not long to go until their release dates, they are given privileges (eg. keys to their own rooms) and responsibilities (most are expected to go out to work every day). I find myself reflecting on what the original occupants of the building would have thought of the various subsequent ones, and about the very different Christmases which must have been spent there.