The Star of Brockley

Long before Broca, Moonbow Jakes and Toadsmouth Too, non-alcoholic drinks were to be had in Brockley courtesy of the Victorian temperance movement. According to the South London Observer, 24 August 1889:

'a new lodge of the Grand Order of the Sons of the Phoenix to be known as the Star of Brockley will meet at the Temperance Refreshment Rooms, 312 Brockley Road, opposite the cemetery'. The Sons of the Phoenix were apparently a friendly society promoting abstinence from alcohol.

Kelly: South London is the Place to Be

Last Tuesday's South London Press mentioned that Kelly Rowland (Destiny's Child) had cut the ribbon at the opening of St Aubyn's Holistic Centre in Cleaver Street, Kennington. What's more she said "I'm told South London is the place to be and I am considering Battersea" (how about considering New Cross? There's a house for sale on my road that would suit a global r'n'b superstar).

I remember reading that Destiny's Child once rehearsed at the Husky studios in Amelia Street (up by the Elephant) - think they were getting ready for a TV appearance. In years of wandering up and down the Walworth Road though I have never bumped in Beyonce, Michelle or Kelly.

Close Encounters of the Brockley Kind

The Ministry of Defence this week released formerly classified documents on UFO sightings in the UK. The files are available free of charge on the National Archives website for the next few weeks, after which you have to pay. As David Clarke notes in a very helpful overview of the material, the military have been recording unusual air activity since the early 20th century, but things really hotted up after the 1947 'flying saucer' excitement in the USA. The majority of 'Unidentified Flying Objects' actually do get idenitified 'as bright stars and planets, meteors, artificial satellites, balloons, aircraft seen from unusual angles and space junk burning up in the atmosphere. However, there are some cases on record where no common explanation can be found' sometimes known as 'unidentified aerial phenomena'. Of course the fact that they are unexplained is not evidence that they are spacecraft from other planets – that is only one of numerous conjectures.

Having trawled through some of the files (some of them are 300 page pdfs) I have found a somewhat sketchy report of a Brockley sighting: at 9:30 pm on 3 May 1986 a secretary walking outdoors in misty conditions saw a green light in the sky above the 'railway line at Brockley' described as 'In a vehicle – of sorts. A ring, brilliant’ which moved 'In an arc. Very fast'.
Other South London reports include:

- an 'orange sphere' moving rapidly above Stockwell on 10th July 1986;
- a 'shimmering silver' object 'bright and reflective' seen by an Air Traffic Controller from Waterloo Bridge on 19th July 1985, with at least 12 other witnesses (also reported by somebody on the South Bank outside the Chrysanthemum floating pub who noted its 'high speed movement in several directions');
- A 'large flashing light' spotted by a Home Office civil servant on 19th May 1985 from Hungerford Bridge apparently moving from 'over the Festival Hall at considerable height' to 'over the National Theatre gradually appearing to get smaller';
- 'One large dart shaped object, silver in colour' spotted from Streatham on 3rd May 1985 moving over Wimbledon (Heathrow airport reported that 'they had a silver aircraft on approach to land at that time').

Of course we also had the Peckham Rye 'was it a plane? was it a balloon thing?' thing last year.

Brockley and Stockwell reports are in file DEFE 24/1924, the others in DEFE 24/1923. There's really not much more detail than I've included here, but let me know if you find anything else in the other files.

Update (17th May 2008): the South London Press also covers this story. They mention a sighting in October 1984 when a “circular, saucer shaped” craft with a “dark band pulsating light” was spotted at 10.30pm over Waterloo Bridge before flying down towards St Paul’s Cathedral.

The Chords - Maybe Tomorrow

Following yesterday's Woolwich mods photo, I was thinking about the late 70s/early 80s mod revival. One of the key bands was Deptford's The Chords. Their first gig, in 1979, was at The King's Head in Deptford (they rehearsed at Silver Sound Studios in Sydenham). This is them on Top of the Pops in 1980 with their big hit Maybe Tomorrow:

Woolwich Photos

The Guardian website today highlights the photography of George Plemper, a great collection of pictures of life in Thamesmead and Woolwich in the late 1970s and early 1980s. There's even more of them on his excellent flickr collection.

A lot of the pictures were taken when he was working as a teacher at Riverside School, Thamesmead (now Bexley Business Academy) and there are also various images from Woolwich Tramshed and other places in the area.

My favourite is this picture of a couple on Woolwich Dockyard Estate in 1981. Where are they now?

Plough Sessions 3

The third of the East Dulwich Jug Band's monthly Plough Sessions last Wednesday ended up with 28 people performing a song written on the night to celebrate children's writer Enid Blyton (1897-1968) who was born near to the pub at 354 Lordship Lane. Noddy, Big Ears and the Magic Faraway Tree all get a mention.


(see here for last month's session)

A Scandal in A Brixton Market

Well I was wondering what Laurel Aitken's A Scandal in A Brixton Market sounds like, and now thanks to John L (who sent me the mp3) I know. You can hear it too, bad man! murder! police! and all - it really does sound like people having a row in the market.

Laurel Aitken (1927-2005) was a Cuban-born and Jamaican-raised singer, who started out in calypso and then became a well-known ska artist. He moved to England in 1960, settling in Brixton and later in Leicester. A Scandal in A Brixton Market (1969) is one of the numerous singles he recorded for Nu-Beat, Bluebeat and other labels.

South London Villages?

A new Ladywell Village Improvement Group has been set up, with of course its own embryonic blog (thanks to Green Ladywell and Andrew for the link). Well good luck to them but I have to ask is Ladywell really a village? Is anywhere in London?

Obviously it's true that London is made up of many former villages, sucked into the metropolis as it expanded. And within the greater London area there are certainly some genuine villages - for instance in the rural parts of The London Borough of Bromley that aren't really London at all. It may also be true that even within London proper there are some small areas that retain a village feel - though they are not really small, discrete communities geographically distinct from surrounding areas.

I must admit I am a little suspicious of attempts to rebrand urban areas as villages. London is a city above all else, and sometimes the use of the term village is an attempt, usually by more affluent residents, to deny the fact and declare some implicit 'Passport to Pimlilco'-style independence from urban realities.

There are some cases where the use is semi-fraudulent - for instance rebranding part of Peckham as 'Bellenden Village' when there never was such a village in the pre-urban period. That's just a transparent attempt to deny the stigma of an SE15 postcode. Others, such as Blackheath and Dulwich, perhaps have more of a case, though it can certainly be overstated. Once I was in a shop in Dulwich 'Village' and somebody said to the owner 'there's a lot of outsiders in the village today'! I wanted to remind them that they lived on the South Circular five minutes from both Brixton and Peckham but I refrained.

What about Ladywell? Once upon a time there was a Ladywell village proper but it's long gone - I see it as an area round the corner from Lewisham High Street, not exactly ducks on the village green territory (though Ladywell Fields is a very pleasant park). A quick google search does show that most references to Ladywell Village are on estate agents' websites, usually an indicator of wishful thinking rather than geographical accuracy. Still there was apparently a Ladywell Village Society in the 1980s which does at least suggest that some people have been calling it that for more than 20 years. Over to you Ladywellers.

Brixton Songs

Songs about South London is a Transpontine perennial, and one area that has more than most is Brixton. Urban 75 has a good list of 26 Brixton songs, and there are a few that aren't on their list in the Wikipedia Brixton article. Some of these are well known (Guns of Brixton by The Clash, Electric Avenue by Eddy Grant), others I haven't heard but would like to (e.g. Scandal In A Brixton Market by ska artist Laurel Aitken), and then there are some that you just know are going to be terrible and probably racist - such as 'comedian' Jim Davidson's 'The Devil Went Down to Brixton'. Alabama 3 (of course), Renegade Soundwave, Angelic Upstarts and Rancid have all had a go.

Neither list specifically mentions Linton Kwesi Johnson's Sonny Lettah, with its opening line 'Brixton Prison, Jebb Avenue, London South West Two, Inglan'. Here it is:

Excentral Tempest

Excentral Tempest is a William Blake-quoting, New Cross-based hip hop MC who sounds like she is going somewhere. Read an interview with Excentral Tempest (Kate) at UK Hip Hop, but more importantly listen at her myspace site. She also contributed to the Peace Not War London Mix album (2006): 'Peace is More than the Absence of War' by Excentral Tempest and the New Cross Philharmonic Orchestra. She's playing at the Big Chill, Bestival and other festivals over the summer.

Green spaces

The sun shines and everyone's thoughts turn to the wide open spaces of South East London. Luckily there's a few events coming up to help you enjoy them.

Next Saturday, May 17th, is the annual Nunhead Cemetery open day, with lots of stalls, guided walks and refreshments courtesy of the Friends of Nunhead Cemetery.

Then on June 8th there's an open day at the Devonshire Road Nature Reserve (on the railway cutting between Forest Hill and New Cross Gate). There will be guided walks around the wildlife garden, meadows and woodlands and the East Dulwich Jug Band will be there too - bring along your instruments and help compose and perform a song on the day.

On June 28th, there's a fesitval at Blythe Hill Fields, while on July 19th Hillaballoo will be happening in Telegraph Hill Park in New Cross.

Nathan Persad

I heard about Nathan Persad through the great Modculture - they like him, not surprizing as his sound is very much 1960s beat group (The Hollies, Merseybeats etc.) with a South East London twist. Lyrics on his website include 'I love Deptford' and 'Ivydale' - the latter presumably a hymn to Ivydale Road in Nunhead with the line 'If you're not really sure, Just catch the 484.'

Shakespeare's Sister

Tlon is a fantastic second hand bookshop in the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre where I have discovered many treasures. I noticed today that there is a bust of Virginia Woolf in the shop, which I thought was highly appropriate given the author's imagining of a fictional Shakespeare's sister who 'killed herself one winter's night and lies buried at some crossroads where the omnibuses now stop outside the Elephant and Castle' . The context, in her book A Room of One's Own, was a reflection on the difficulties a woman writer would have faced at that time and were still facing in her time.

Virginia Woolf would have known the area as she used to teach English literature and history at Morley College, just up from the Elephant and Castle, before the First World War. Towards the end of her novel Orlando, the heroine, having undergone multiple transformations over several hundred years, drives through the area: 'The Old Kent Road was very crowded on Thursday, the eleventh of October1928. People spilt off the pavement. There were women with shopping bags. Children ran out. There were sales at drapers' shops'.

Whatever the future holds for the Elephant & Castle will it include a cool bookshop with a Virginia Woolf statue?

Deptford Properly

Finally made it down to Deptford Properly cafe in Tanners Hill on Saturday. They immediately scored top points as they were playing Belle and Sebastian's 'The Boy with the Arab Strap' when I went in. Then I sat outside in the sun with a pot of tea - real tea leaves and only £1.30 - and a very nice chocolate cake.

They also had lots of quirky and interesting books to read - I had time to read some short pieces by Jorge Louis Borges before going on my way. Yes indeed something for your mind, your body and your soul. I believe it's open Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, 10 am - 7 pm and Sunday 11 am - 7 pm. I will be returning.

Dissident Distribution

There's been lots of interest in newish techno/house/electro label Dissident Distribution and its limited issue 12" singles. Walking past Rubbish and Nasty in New Cross Road today I noticed they had one of their records in the window (Colombia) with a note extolling Dissident Distribution and saying 'and it's all based in New Cross'. Just been listening to Zombie Raffle by Ali Renault, kind of early 80s Italo-disco film soundrack style.

Notes from The Island

After a long period of semi-dormancy, a flurry of posts at Notes from The Island, documenting life on a traffic island in New Cross Road.

Suffragists and Post Boxes

Between 1912 and 1914 campaigners for votes for women sabotaged post boxes in Deptford, Greenwich, Brockley and elsewhere, as well as starting fires at Dulwich College and, in January 1914, at a cricket pavilion in Burnt Ash Road. They were also suspected of starting a fire at St Catherine's Church in Pepys Road - although this was never proved.

In January 1913, a 24 year-old Suffragist was jailed for 8 months at the Old Bailey for damaging a post box in Tanners Hill, Deptford. Louisa Gay, a teacher from Broadway, South Croydon, was said to have posted a white package of a 'deleterious fluid [black dye], and thereby injuring the said letter-box and its contents'.

May Billinghurst, aged 30, of 7 Oakcroft Road, Blackheath and Grace Mitchell of St Stephens Road, Lewisham were charged with a similar offence in Aberdeen Terrace, Blackheath, as part of the campaign for votes for women. Lewisham-born Billinghurst (1875- 1953) was disabled, but being in a wheelchair did not stop her campaigning. In 1910 she founded the Greenwich branch of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). Jailed for 8 months for damaging post boxes she went on hunger strike and was force-fed - being released two weeks later on grounds of ill-health.

The Lewisham branch of the Women’s Social and Political Union was very active in this area. In the space of a couple of weeks in May 1908 they ‘spoke to a crowd of 4,000 – 5,000 working men and women in Deptford Broadway’, held a similar size meeting on Blackheath, and had a meeting on ‘the Enfranchisement of Women’ in the New Cross Hall on Lewisham High Road. The latter, held on May 6th was advertised as chaired by ‘Mrs Bouvier, speakers, Miss Christabel Pankhurst, Mrs Baldock, Miss Naylor. All the above have undergone imprisonment for the cause’ (South London Observer, 2 May 1908).

Sources: Proceedings of the Old Bailey; Times 27 December 1913, Irs Dove, Yours in the cause: suffragettes in Lewisham, Greenwich and Woolwich (London: Lewisham & Greenwich Libraries, 1988)

More Tales From the Crypt

St Paul's Church in Deptford has recently had a major restoration project, including the crypt. Twenty years ago though the latter 'was a damp , mildewy, run down place with dirty walls and dirty floor and a dodgy loo without doors' (from here). It was also a major subcultural centre.

Pyschedelic Club

In the mid-1980s there was a regular Friday night Psychedelic club. The flyer, left, is from 1985 - note the enticement to 'Be early - people are dying to get in'. Run by Andy More, the club was more like an indoor festival featuring regular appearances from free festival favourites like The Ozric Tentacles and The Magic Mushroom Band. It became known as a place where people could drink and smoke dope all night without having to worry about the police - I am sure this had nothing to do with the promoter being an ex-policeman.

Born2Rant has posted her memories of club there on her interesting hippiecounterculture blog: 'with the dope smoke , the fantastic lightshows, the colourlful drugged up crowd dancing like maniacs, and of course the amazing music , it became a magical place. There were very few public places in London you could smoke dope safely... The Ozrics were playing and the vibe was amazing. All these girls were on stage and dancing with them... the place was packed solid and everyone was doing mad psychedelic dancing and bumping into each other under the strobes' (she also mentions there being a separate gay night in the Crypt).

Bands who played there included The Ozric Tentacles, The Magic Mushroom Band, Treatment, The TV Personalities, The Invisible Band , The Cardiacs, Space Pirates, Wooden Baby, Nukli, Mighty Lemondrops, 1000 Violins, The Trogs, The Pink Faeries, The Shamen and The Stone Roses (I was surprised by the latter but its confirmed here).

Reggae Sound Systems

In his Short History of Music in South London, John Heathcote mentions reggae sound systems playing in the Crypt. This is confirmed in William (Lez) Henry's excellent What the Deejay Said, which includes a detailed account of an early 1980s soundclash there featuring his own Ghettotone sound system, Revolutionary Hi Power and Frontline International (the latter apparently victorious after turning up with a truck load of speakers to literally blow away the opposition). He says: 'a popular venue at the time was the 'Crypt' in Deptford... where the spirits of the dead were regularly replaced by the spirits of the living-black, tomb-ravers'.

Other clubs

The Band of Holy Joy played some of their first gigs at at an early 1980s club called The Stomach Pump in the crypt. Johny Brown from the band recalls that 'the club was run by two extremely groovy guys called Slug and Chin and some of the best times of my life were had in there'. Charles Hayward's Camberwell Now also played at The Stomach Pump in November 1983, so I am guessing it was a fairly leftfield kind of place.

There were also punk gigs - anarcho-punks Virus played there in 1986. Then in 1998 there was an early acid house club Boomshanka on Saturday nights. The picture - of a Psycho's Mum gig in 1988 - gives a sense of the space.

Tell us more if you have any memories/flyers etc. Also, I believe scenes from Interview with a Vampire were filmed at St Pauls.

May Day Green and Red

Over a hundred years ago, the photographer Thankful Sturdee took this photograph in Deptford of the Fowlers Troop with their May Day Jack in the Green. Their present day descendants will be taking the Deptford Jack in the Green out for his annual walk on Thursday 1st May, with a focus this year on the South Bank area. The meeting place and route for this Thursday are shown below (all times are subject to change, depending on beer and climate).

10.30 - 11.30: Borough Market – Market Porter, (Free House) Stoney Street, London SE1 9AA,

Deptford Jack prepares, and leaves at 11.30 sharp.
Stoney St, Clink St, Bankside, Jubilee Walkway
11.40 - 11.50: Globe Theatre
11.55 - 12.35: Founders Arms, (Youngs) Hopton Street, SE1 9JH
12.35 -12.45: Tate Modern, Bankside
Hopton St, Upper Ground
12.55 - 1.35: Gabriels Wharf (various refreshments) & National Theatre
Upper Ground, Waterloo Road
1.45 - 2.40: Hole in the wall, (Free House)5 Mepham Street, SE1 8SQ
Exton St, Roupell St, Meynott St, Blackfiars Rd, Union Street
2.55 - 3.45: Charles Dickens, (Free House) 160 Union Street, SE1 0LH
Union St, Pepper St, Doyce St, Clenham Street
4.00 - 4.40: Lord Clyde, (Free House) 27 Clenham St, SE1 1ER
Marshalsea Rd, Great Dover Rd, Silvester St
4.45 – 5.45: Royal Oak, (Harveys) 44 Tabard Street, SE1 4JU
Borough High St, Stoney Street
6.00 – 11.30? Market Porter (again) – Thank you and Good night

Basically its a procession with English folk music and a frame decorated with spring foliage - a dancing bear might also be in attendance, or at least a grown man dressed as one. If you've never made it to this, you really should.

Also on Thursday, The Strawberry Thieves Socialist Choir are hosting their annual May Day event at Brockley Social Club, 240 Brockley Road, SE4, with a collection of socialist songs for international workers day. All welcome from 7:30 pm.

Humphrey Lyttelton & Camberwell Jazz

When I was putting together my recent Camberwell mix, I did think about including Humphrey Lyttelton, who died this week. For he did go to Camberwell Art College on being discharged from the army in 1946. The obituary in The Independent covers the crucial South East London phase of his career:

'“When I got out of the army I was 25 and didn’t feel like going back to anything very academic, so I went to Camberwell School of Art for a couple of years and round about the same time started playing jazz in various low dives,” he recalled. “I’m sure there was a buzz in the family going round about me, but I was oblivious, sloping off to places like the Nuthouse on Regent Street with my trumpet and a dirty mac over my uniform.” He soon found the required subjects at the School of Art tiresome and concentrated on the comic drawings that came so naturally to him. But his devotion to the trumpet grew ever stronger. Wearing his army battledress, now dyed navy-blue, and sporting a beard and sandals, he played at jam sessions with professional dance-band musicians and began to travel to the Red Barn, a pub in Bexley in Kent, where the pianist George Webb’s band played every Monday night'.

In March 1947 he joined the George Webb Dixielanders and his professional career as a jazz musician was underway. Also in the Dixielanders was another ex-Camberwell student, Wally Fawkes, with whom Lyttelton formed the first Humphrey Lyttelton Band in 1948. Incidentally another important figure in the post-war trad jazz scene, clarinetist Monty Sunshine, went to Camberwell School of Art too.

(picture shows Lyttelton, right, at the Hammersmith Palais in 1951)

Stop the BNP

Just got back from the Love Music, Hate Racism festival in a rainy Victoria Park. In a week's time it is possible that the British National Party will have a member of the Greater London Assembly.

The paradox is that the far right remain organisationally very weak in London. The BNP couldn't even put forward a candiate for the Lewisham consituency. Its candidates are a laughing stock - Richard Barnbrook shagging immigrants in a flat in Blackheath, and its second choice on its London list being dropped for his comments on rape (more South London shame here - Nick Eriksen used to be a Conservative councillor in Southwark). As for the National Front, when they 'marched' in Eltham last week - an area they might have thought of as a far right heartland - a mere 22 people turned up, a number of whom were later 'acquainted with the pavement' by Antifa when they went on to another fascist gathering in Victoria later the same day.

Nevertheless it is possible that the BNP will secure 5% of the London-wide vote and secure an official foothold in London politics - for information check out the Hope not Hate London website.

Latin Americans targeted at Elephant and Castle

We have received this call from the Ecuadorian Movement in the UK for a protest against a Borders Agency raid at the Elephant in which 15 people were arrested:

ALERTA! ALERTA!

ECUADORIANS ARE BEING TREATED LIKE TERRORISTS BY THE HOME OFFICE.

On Thursday, April 24th, in Elephant and Castle – the heart of the Latin American community – the HOME OFFICE and BRITISH POLICE entered Ecuadorian business in an unprecedented operation.

The police forced their way in hunting for undocumented workers. This is happening in the country where human rights are supposedly respected. Children looked on as armed police pushed their parents against the wall, broke through doors and intimidated all those they found in spots known to be frequented by Latin Americans, the majority of whom are Ecuadorians. This unusual scene is something that has only been observed to date in cases of “terrorism.”

This must be rejected by the Ecuadorian community. We need to use all the possible channels open to us within the law to denounce this act of abuse of authority against immigrant communities such as the Ecuadorian community.

We are placing the entire community on alert. We must join in solidarity with our brothers and sisters, and unite also with the campaigns that are unfolding [in various migrant communities now under attack.]

We will express our protest this Sunday at Fusion, in front of Elephant and Castle, starting at 15h00, where the candidates are scheduled to debate proposals for the Mayor of London. We will take banners and flyers condemning this stance by the British government.

WE ARE NOT CRIMINALS! WE ARE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO WORK!

WE ARE HUMAN BEINGS AND WANT TO BE RESPECTED!

Transpontine TV 3: Camberwell

The latest broadcast is themed around Camberwell... (if any of the tracks don't show in your viewer, click on here to watch the lot)

1. House of Love – Shine On – Camberwell indie darlings from 1990

2. KLF - 3am Eternal –KLF HQ was Jimmy Cauty’s house in Camberwell.

3. Pink Floyd – See Emily Play – early Floyd with Syd Barrett, some time Camberwell Art College student

4. Basement Jaxx - Red Alert – they once recorded a track called ‘I live in Camberwell’, sure at least one of them did too.

5. Withnal and I – the famous Camberwell Carrot scene.

6. Joe Jackson – It’s different for girls – apparently lived at 69 Camberwell Grove in the early 80s and sometimes drank in the Grove Tavern.

7. Roxy Music - Virgina Plain – started out rehearsing in a Camberwell bedsit

8. Kode9 & Spaceape – 9 Samurai –Kode9, hippest thing in Camberwell 2008

9. Mystery Jets - Young Love – two of them went to Camberwell Art College, this is their latest single ‘Young Love’, featuring Laura Marling.

10. Mixmaster Morris – Mr Nubient, SE5. This is a Japanese animated video of his remix of Julia by Nuno Felipe (2005).

Denny Wright - Brockley guitar hero

Denny (Denys Justin) Wright (1924-1992) was an influential jazz and skiffle guitarist, born in Deptford and growing up in Brockley - at some point he apparently lived at 36 Brockhill Crescent.

Denny Wright played at various times with Stephane Grappelli and Lonnie Donegan (including on the latter's record, Cumberland Gap), and in 1945 opened London's first bebop jazz club, the Fullado in Old Compton Street. Check out Denny's fantastic guitar solo on Cumberland Gap (you can hear Lonnie Donegan shout 'Denny' just before it):

Deptford Soul City

In autumn 1966 the first specialist soul records shop in Europe opened at no. 21 Deptford High Street, with a speech about freedom by novelist Brigid Brophy. The shop, Soul City, was the brainchild of 'an Esperanto-speaking vegan-anarchist from Bexleyheath, Dave Godin' (see here) and his friends David Nathan and Robert Blackmore.

The shop attracted enthusiasts from all over the country in search of soul obscurities, and later in 1967 (apparently after a burglary in the Deptford shop) it moved to Monmouth Street in Covent Garden).

Dave Godin (1936 -2005) was a key figure in promoting soul music in the UK through his shop, record labels and writing in Blues and Soul magazine. Born in Peckham and raised in Lambeth and Bexleyheath, he has been credited with introducing soul music to Mick Jagger at Dartford Grammar School and with coining the term 'northern soul'. As well as the record shop, Soul City was also a record label for a while.

The image above of the Deptford shop is reproduced from 'The In Crowd: The Story of the Northern and Rare Soul Scene' by Mike Ritson and Stuart Russell. The bottome picture shows Trevor Churchill, later of Chiswick and Ace Records (left) and Dave Godin (centre) outside the Deptford shop.

As with all our history material on this site, we'd love to hear more - anybody out there remember the Deptford shop?

Dennis Bovell and Studio 80, SE1

Thanks to Music Like Dirt's musical map of London , I have come across another South London musical landmark: Dennis Bovell's Studio 80 at 6/8 Emerson Street, London SE1. Bovell is renowned as a musician, producer and sound engineer who started out with UK reggae outfit Matumbi.

In 1979 he produced Janet Kay’s lovers’ rock hit Silly Games, and maybe it was the proceeds that helped him open the studio the following year (I am guessing from the name it opened in 1980). According to Roots Archives, reggae albums produced there by Dennis Bovell included his own Brain Damage (1981), Janet Kay’s Capricorn Woman (1982), I Roy’s Outer Limit (1983) and Linton Kwesi Johnson’s LKJ in Dub Vol.2 (1983) and Making History (1984). But Bovell has also worked with lots of non-reggae musicians, just about everyone in fact - The Slits, The Thompson Twins, Bananarama, Fela Kuti, Dexy's Midnight Runners, Edwin Collins and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Of these I have so far only confirmed that the latter’s B-2 Unit was recorded there in 1980, which of the others graced the streets of SE1 remains to be seen.

There’s also Dennis Bovell’s Brockley connections with Lovers Rock, but that will have to wait for another post.

Black Music Hall Performers

The black presence in music hall entertainment is often overlooked, so I was interested to come across a report of a show at the South London Palace, a Victorian music hall in London Road (north of Elephant and Castle). One night in September 1889 the bill included 'J.H. Maxwell, negro comedian and one-armed juggler' and 'Bennett and Harley, negro comedians' (South London Observer, 29.9.1889). Anybody know anymore about them?

Happy-Go-Lucky

I enjoyed the new Mike Leigh film Happy-Go-Lucky. It's really a north London movie - driving round the mean streets of Finsbury Park, dancing in Koko (Camden Palace) etc. But the opening scene sees main character Poppy cycling across the river to Lower Marsh, behind Waterloo station, where she visits a bookshop. This scene was filmed in the fine Crockat and Powell bookshop there. I can report though the people who work there are a lot more friendly and forthcoming than the fictional bookshop worker in the film who steadfastly ignores Poppy's ceaseless attempts at jolly communication.

Oh yes, the film also features New Cross-based actress Sylvestra Le Touzel as the flamenco-dancing headteacher in the school where Poppy works.

Adelle Stripe/Entertaining Mr Sloane

Here's Brutalist poet Adelle Stripe reading her poem Veronica - which is all about a grave in Camberwell Old Cemetery in Forest Hill. She mentions Joe Orton in this - the 1970 film version of his play Entertaining Mr Sloane was filmed in the area, including in the gatehouse to the cemetery, as you can see in this clip (with the Georgie Fame theme tune):

Last tram in London: New Cross 1952

Some lovely footage of the last tram journey in London coming to an end at New Cross depot on Saturday 5th July 1952. But wait was it really the last tram? Apparently the one featured in the film was a "ceremonial tram" bringing Lord Latham, Chairman of London Transport and other VIPs from Charlton to New Cross depot. Thousands turned out on the streets to cheer.

But, according to the Kentish Mercury, the last tram from New Cross to Abbey Wood (the 72 route) actually left later at 11:33, driven by 'William Crosk (28 years service) of 140 Dursley Road, Blackheath' with 'His conductor... Mr John Whitehead (33 years service) of 131 Alabama Street, Plumstead'.

The last tram was burnt on a "funeral pyre" at Penhall Hall Depot at Charlton on Wednesday 15th July (sources: from Kentish Mercury, 4th July 1952; 18th July 1952).

This is how the US Time Magazine reported in July 1952:

'One day last week, as a fierce hot wind swept the city, London's last regularly scheduled tram made its way along the Old Kent Road to New Cross Depot. Old passengers, some in nostalgic fancy dress, lined the route to bid the old red double-decker farewell with chalked signs, "We Want Trams." Pennies were placed in the tracks to be flattened as souvenirs. Others crowded aboard for a last ride. "They are all mad," screamed the conductress at Motorman William Fitzpatrick. "They have taken the light bulbs; they are ripping up the seats. Why don't you stop when I ring the bell?" But the bell had been stolen as a keepsake. On ran the tram, heady and glorious. It was clanking along at 40 m.p.h. when a motorcycle cop threatened a summons. "We were driving 50 easy," boasted the driver.

When at last the tram reached New Cross, every one of its windows was shattered, every loose object was gone. It didn't matter. The whole thing was soon to be burned, its metal sold for scrap. A transport inspector pocketed the driver's rear-view mirror. Motorman Fitzpatrick sighed. "I'll have to be getting home," he said. "Tomorrow at 9 I'm driving a bus."'.

All very sweet, but let's not make a fetish out of reviving bygone transport vehicles let alone vote for a candidate for London Mayor because he panders to some nostalgic fantasy of the good old days of routemasters buses!

South Eats London May 2nd

Friday 2nd May, South Eats London are at the Deptford Arms (52 Deptford High Street) for a night of 'Post-election fun... featuring the hotbrass exuberance of Danny Fontaine and the Horns of Fury, grimy London ballads from Joseph and the Jellied Eels and cracked lilting poetry from Gabi Garbutt and the Breadstealers. Plus Live Karauke (yes,that's karaoke AND ukuleles) and the burning of the Wicker Mayor,whoever that may be".

Since I started playing the uke all of of two months ago and strumming along with the Brockley Ukulele Group (B.U.G), the Karauke naturally intrigues me - presumably it entails a uke player banging out the backing track for somebody to warble over. Come to think of it that is pretty much what we do with B.U.G. as we murder versions of New Order, Radiohead and Bright Eyes songs.

Walking New Cross (7): the Surrey Canal Wasteland

I think it was Jean Genet who said that the sewers of heaven still stink. Every area of human habitation needs a place where all the waste gets taken care of. For New Cross, and indeed the wider borough of Lewisham, that place is Surrey Canal Road.

As the name suggests, the road replaces the old Grand Surrey Canal; it still has a feel of a sunken canal with the road surface several feet below the level of the footpath (the former canal tow path). In fact there were two canals, the Croydon canal joining the Surrey canal where Mercury Way joins Surrey Canal Road. Nowadays it is dustcarts rather than canal boats that pass up and down.

Many of the names round here aspire heavenward, even if their business is very much earthbound. There is Juno Way, Mercury Way, the Orion Business Centre and the Gemini Project industrial estate. The nearest anything gets to the stars is the 100m chimney of the Landmann Way incinerator or, to give it its full title, South East London Combined Heat and Power Ltd. waste to energy plant, opened in 1994.

Rubbish gets burnt here in vast quantities to generate electricity. There have been protests by environmentalists about emissions from SELCHP, including a Greenpeace occupation which closed it for several days in February 2002. It would obviously be preferable if less rubbish was produced and more recycled, but given that the rubbish exists there is also an environmental argument that it is better to dispose of some of it this way than to drive it outside of London to dump in landfill sites. NHS studies of the health impact of SELCHP have not found any evidence of an increase in illness in the local area, but equally they acknowledge that if there was an impact it would be difficult to identify and not become apparent in the short term.

On the corner of the same road is the Lewisham dump or again to use official titles, Household Waste Reuse and Recycling Centre. Outside it is this tasteful colour coded assemblage of rubbish. There are other private sections of the rubbish industry. On Landmann Way there is also the Deptford Waste and Recycling Centre. On Mercury Way there is Wellings scrap metal, a car yard and Economic Skips, the latter a three sided warehouse into which skips are emptied into a huge pile.

Not everything round here is rubbish. On Juno Way there's the Elizabeth Industrial Estate, 'on the site of the Mazawattee Tea Company, which here produced chocolate and cocoa from 1901 to c.1955' (Darrell Spurgeon, Discover Deptford and Lewisham, 1997). No drinking chocolate today, but organic chocolate brownies are made here in the bakery of Flour Power City. The tower below is a leftover from the tea company.